By Gretchen Wing

One of the favorite pastimes of the board members of Lopez Island Community Scholarship Foundation (LICSF), now in its seventh year, is to share “Where are they now?” updates of our awardees’ progress in the world. But why should the board have all the fun?

Recently, LICSF was able to catch up with Lopez graduate Anah-Kate Drahn to hear about her adventures. Spoiler alert: she’s graduating from nursing school. Following high school, Drahn headed across the country in 2018, to Emory University in Atlanta. She credits her older siblings with the idea of venturing so far away; brother Nate had gone to Arkansas, sister Miriam to Colorado. “I knew I could make a home away from home wherever it was,” Drahn says, “and I wanted to see more of the world.”

But Emory had a special draw as well: it is one of the few schools which accepts transfers from its humanities courses straight into its nursing program, which is otherwise extremely difficult to get into. Immersing herself in humanities before focusing on nursing, Drahn says, shaped her into “a better human,” adding, “I love Lopez and I love our school, but I felt like I didn’t fully understand…what America was.” Two years of coursework like Women and Gender Studies and American Movements, along with science and math prerequisites, prepared a base from which to ascend into nursing. Drahn mentions receiving pushback from some on Lopez about sojourning in Georgia.

“There’s a lot of implicit bias against the South, that it’s made up of racists,” she says. “I find that very close-minded. I think that racism is …very noticeable throughout our country.” In Atlanta, Drahn is often a member of a racial minority, something she finds “super-important to understand and to live in.” She admits to having felt some culture shock at first, but simply due to having grown up on an island. “I think I would’ve had culture shock no matter where I went,” Drahn says with a laugh.

Like millions of students, Drahn took a gap year in 2020, but she calls herself “very lucky,” having planned one even before COVID. She spent the year working as an EMT in Seattle, commuting from Bellingham. Drahn says, “It was a great experience—really hard—but a precursor of what I was getting myself into.” Watching “how the EMTS would reassure people having the worst day of their life, take care of them, with a whole other level of empathy,” Drahn says, “they showed me how I can be.” Those empathy lessons had, in fact, begun when Drahn, at age 15, joined the student EMTs on Lopez, a continuing program she says “blew her away,” and which she highly recommends to other youth.

So immersive was that working gap year, Drahn admits, she almost didn’t come back to Emory—“but I’m so glad I did,” especially as her Seattle experience has helped her become a better nurse. EMTs and nurses don’t always get along in the heat of the moment, she explains, but now she understands both perspectives.

Drahn will graduate with her Emory nursing degree in May. Asked about what’s next, she responds, “So many plans!” In November, she and her fellow-nurse best friend will move to Denver to work on the Acute Care Trauma Unit at Denver Health. Excited and nervous, Drahn explains she has always “leaned into really uncomfortable places… When I am most uncomfortable, that’s where I grow the most.” Mountains, she says, are her “main source of de-stress,” and she could easily have found a job near mountains in Washington, but—“Might as well scare myself!”

So Denver it is, in the fall. But this summer, Drahn and her friend plan to walk the 400-mile Camino de Santiago, Portugal through Spain, staying at hostels. Drahn says it’s a good activity for a “time of transition,” an opportunity for “centering” before turning to the next thrilling chapter.

Does Drahn have any advice for current high schoolers? “Don’t be afraid to take time, to listen to your gut,” she says, and encourages both taking a gap year and finding the courage to leave the area. “Coming from an island, that’s a really scary leap to do, and I wholeheartedly believe that’s what you should do. You can always come back. There’s just way too much in this world to see.”