By all accounts, Sarah Payne is a model student, always willing to go the extra mile to get the grade.
But when her Advanced Placement biology class baked up chocolate chip cicada cookies for snacks, she demurred.
"I didn’t eat them. I watched them cook them," said Payne, who is a member of the Potomac Falls High School class of 2004.
Declining to dine on locusts was probably one of the few times Payne has turned down an opportunity. The petite former cheerleader was also a member of the National Honor Society, and when she wasn't volunteering via the society, she was volunteering as a member of Christ the Redeemer church in Sterling.
And when she wasn’t picking 2-foot cucumbers as part of Project Harvest, which collects government-owned, genetically engineered enormous vegetables for food drives, and between other volunteer opportunities through the youth group at her church, Payne was studying. She wants to become a biomedical engineer.
"I LOVE MEDICINE," she said. "I like learning about disease."
Her goal is to design medicine, a field that is something of a political hot potato.
"I want to work with stem cells if I can," Payne said. "I think that people have reasons for being against stem cells, but I think a lot of people that are against it don’t fully understand what could develop from it."
"Sarah is a very dedicated student," said PFHS biology teacher Cathy Whitlow. "It’s a joy to read her papers."
Whitlow cited Payne's at-home plant project, where students sketched out the plant life cycle, as a pinnacle of high-school academia.
"Her plant unit was just gorgeous," Whitlow said. "She did a beautiful home unit that was just what I wanted it to be."
"That was probably the hardest I ever worked on a project," Payne admitted.
That unit was an important one too, in Whitlow’s eyes. In addition to the sketches, students raised a plant from a seed.
"I always tell them, you can't graduate until you can grow something," Whitlow said.
"SARAH HAS a mature quality," guidance counselor Dan Croyle said. She’s a "hard worker, determined, always in good spirits, no matter what was going on outside of school."
"I've changed a lot the past four years," Payne said as she contemplated her time at Potomac Falls. "I'm very happy with the way I've turned out."
Payne will spend the summer analyzing water samples in a U.S. Geological Survey lab. In the fall, she'll be entering the University of Virginia's engineering school. She also plans on going premed, a combination that will probably keep her busy.
Just a few days before getting her diploma, Payne was a little nostalgic — just a little.
"I’m getting sad now," she said. "Just seeing everybody leaving is sad, but it’s good. I’ll see them all again."