By Kendra Caruso | May 24, 2021
BELFAST — Belfast Area High School valedictorian Ashley Blais, 18, of Swanville, has maintained the top grade point average in her class for all four years of her high school career. She has never felt competitive with her peers, but said she feels competitive with herself and always tries to reach beyond her previous accomplishments.
The music-lover will study audio engineering at New England School of Communications through Husson University. She hopes to create her own music and produce other people’s music, she said. Art teacher Linda Nichols, Blais’ homeroom teacher, said she was "blown away" the first time she heard the senior sing at a school function a couple of years ago.
Music has always played an important role in her life, Blais said. She sings, plays guitar and is learning how to play the cello. She enjoys modern pop music from artists who write their own music,. as well as musical theater, and listens to a lot of theater soundtracks. She thinks it would be "cool" to end up on Broadway producing cast recordings of shows.
“My dream is to write my own music, like sing my own songs and like work to produce music for other people, too. I think that would be the ultimate dream,” she said.
Her parents could see her interest in music from an early age and were not surprised when she told them she wanted to pursue a degree in making music. After she did more research on audio engineering, her parents were completely on board with her decision.
Blais is one of many "amazing" scholars Nichols works with, the teacher said. What sets the valedictorian apart from other high achievers in her class is her dedication to school, and her humble, bubbly personality. She is eager to help other students and is not the type of person who brags about being at the top of the class. “She is just a nice kid and does the right thing,” Nichols said.
Blais said there is a very small difference between her GPA and the salutatorian’s, and many of the students in her class are in the National Honor Society, which speaks to how many students in the school are high academic achievers likeher.
She participates in a number of school activities and clubs, but her favorite has been the Liberian Education Fund, which raises money to help underprivileged Liberian students seek adequate education, she said. She is the club president this year.
“I just thought it was such a cool thing that people in Belfast, Maine, could help students in Liberia, like so far away, go to school and help them achieve their dreams,” she said. “And it was students helping students. And I thought that was just really cool. And I’ve always loved the idea of helping people, especially with education. That’s always been something that I’ve valued.”
Blais always had a love of learning and took advanced classes through school, she said. English and social studies are her favorite subjects, while math and science did not come as easily. She has not been afraid to ask for help when needed, getting tutoring for AP subjects a couple of times in her high school career.
Being separated from half her class during the high school’s hybrid in-class and remote learning regime has been difficult, she said. Students in each class attend the school two days per week. Attendance is split up by last name.
She has been keeping in touch with friends through social media and meeting up to go for walks, she said. She is excited for the whole class to be together again for the last day of school.
She was awarded several scholarships that add up to over $15,500, including the BAHS Maine Principal’s Award and Malmberg Leadership Scholarship. She received book awards from Williams College and Saint Thomas College during her junior year.
She is the secretary of the National Honor Society chapter at the high school and has participated in the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute, as well as several other extracurricular activities.
Nichols said she could see Blais being a great political leader because of her leadership involvement during her high school career, but knowing that the student's dream is to create music, the teacher thinks she has made a wise choice for her next academic pursuit.
“Being the leader that she is, I can’t even imagine where she’s going to go and what she’s going to do,” Nichols said.