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Teen of the Week: Richmond plans to pursue law, music

By Jeffrey Saulton 4 min read

BELPRE - Belpre High School senior Sara Richmond has a dream of practicing disability law and being a front ensemble director for a band.

Richmond, who is a straight A student, is the daughter of Gabriel and Carrie Richmond.

At Belpre High School, she is involved in the handbell choir as well as marching band and vocal choir. She is also a member of the National Honor Society, the Upward Bound Program at Washington State College of Ohio and is a volunteer in the Safetytown program.

Richmond said the Upward Bound program has been a great experience in helping her making decisions about college.

"With this, I can go on college visits and get advice on college," she said, "It’s a fun group because you can meet kids from other schools, do volunteer hours and all sorts of fun stuff.

"I worked on some of the beautifying the area," she said. "I have visited Muskingum University, Ohio University, WVUP, WVU, Little Hocking College and a few others."

Richmond said right now she would like to go to the Ohio University’s prelaw program.

"I’d like to minor in music so I can be a front ensemble director," she said, referring to the group of percussionists set up on the sideline during marching band performances.

In the legal area, she said she is interested in disability law.

Richmond said her favorite subjects are English and history, particularly the American Revolution era.

This year, she completed her first year as a volunteer in the Safetytown program.

"We spent our time going over safety rules with the children and doing crafts and singing songs with them," she said. "Basically it’s working with the kids, getting to know them and making sure they know how to be safe in various environments."

Richmond said topics include pedestrian, bus, construction and pool safety.

"If you name it, we probably did it," she said. "They love it when the police or firefighters come in; they loved to play with the water hose."

Richmond said there was one supervising teacher and then seven to 10 volunteers working with 15 children.

"It comes out to almost one to one," she said.

As a member of the Belpre High School band, she plays the marimba. Balancing her studies with the band activities can be challenging.

"In October, we have practice every day, football games on Friday and competitions on Saturday; it’s incredibly exhausting," she said. "But our director is good at giving us time for work. If for some reason we need to be at a job, we can work when there is band practice one or two times during the season if you are really struggling, which is nice."

Richmond said she enjoys the shows the band puts on in its performances. One in particular is "The Alchemist's Machine."

She said the story is about an alchemist's efforts to get a machine running. In the program, all parts of the band work together to get the machine running.

This year's show is called "Pathways."

"The show is about a person having to make choices," she said "And there are many different choices, and each one is represented by a different color door."

Richmond said they are working toward the goal of qualifying for the state competition.

"I'm really excited to do this in my final year in band," she said. "I'm really going to miss it a lot and miss all the amazing directors that have gotten me here."

When not in band, Richmond makes music with the handbell choir. She said most of the performances for handbells are during the winter.

"We do performances for the community," she said. "We got to the different Christmas events at churches and the tree lighting in Belpre.

"I love the (handbells) class, it is a lot less time consuming than marching band, which is four hours a day, every day," she said.

Jeffrey Saulton can be reached at jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com.

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