Written by Marie Kane |
Photos by Natalie Buchetto

Natalie Buchetto graduated this year from Morgan and is now attending Collin College, which is a community college in Texas about 25 minutes away from where she is living. She is an education major. Natalie likes the college, but she would like to transfer to a larger university soon. “Being at a community college, it isn’t easy to make friends and meet people especially since I’m in a new state where I don’t know anyone at all.” She chose this college because she thought that getting out of her bubble in Clinton would be good for her. She moved in with her mom and family out there and tried to save money by going to a community college.

She was nominated most friendly and most huggable for senior superlatives, which surprised her although she was not selected for either one of them.

Natalie said that being out of high school is crazy. “I always said, ‘ugh, get me out of here. I can’t wait to go to college,’ but now I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, bring me back to Morgan.’ I truly miss Clinton and Morgan, and I wish I spent more time enjoying small moments than rushing through high school.”

“I really want to be a first-grade teacher, and right now I have to take the main courses.” As an education major, she is taking a math class, an English class, a lecture History class, a personal health class, and a public speaking class.

Natalie misses a lot from Morgan and the students too. “I really miss REACT because I was in that club and that was truly the best thing for me so I miss them a lot. I also miss pep rallies and football games there because it’s always fun going to the games.”

Physical education teacher Peter Gersz said that it was pretty awesome to have her as a student because she’s very energetic and always brought a lot of enthusiasm and energy to the class. The one word he used to describe Natalie was exciting and always made others feel comfortable. “She always talked about how she had a good arm as her brother who was a ballplayer.” Mr. Gersz wished Natalie luck and wants her to keep up the good work. “I’m sure she is doing well.”

Natalie said that if she could go back and do the high school experience all over again, she would change her outlook on everything. “I really wish I cherished and enjoyed my time there more than I did. I took advantage of the time I had with Morgan and the time I had with my friends. Now that I’m in a different state and can’t just drive over to visit, I miss everything a lot more.”

She gave a shoutout to business education teacher Mr. Richitelli, who she called the best and her favorite teacher. She said that everyone was great here, but Rich was awesome and a very good guy. “He has no doubt changed my perspective on everything in my life.  He told me to persevere through hard times. I still remember ‘Keep On Keeping On.’ He was a great guy.”

Mr. Richitelli describes having Natalie as a student in Entrepreneurship her senior year as a positive experience. “It was like watching a seed grow. She came in as a little shaky seed and came out as a strong independent one.” He uses the one word “truthful” to describe her because she always tells it like it is. Mr. Richitelli said that Natalie was always so nice and that they had good times. Part of those good times was when she would come to class and share funny stories with him, and they would laugh about them.

Before college, Natalie was very excited to go out and start new, but now she misses CT and high school. “I enjoy college, but it’s not what I expected.” She describes college as emotional. The first three weeks for her flew by and were really easy.  Then her fourth week came, and she was hit with projects, tests, and speeches every day. ” She has made a few friends and has nice professors. “I miss high school, and that was great, but college is also a good experience and new.”

Natalie shared a funny moment from college that she had recently. “I lost my car two weeks ago. I was walking back from class to the parking lot and the lot is huge so I was literally wandering around the whole thing looking stupid because I couldn’t find it. The parking lot isn’t marked so there are no reminders where you are, and I had to get the campus police to help, and it was so embarrassing, but no worries, I found my car.”

Natalie speaks of another teacher, English teacher and Creative Writing teacher Eric Bergman who was her advisory teacher as well as Freshman Course, English 3 and 4. “He was a great guy as well! Very encouraging and always kept the class engaged by doing fun activities and class discussions to always let us as students have a voice. He always wanted to hear what she had to say and he never made me or any other student feel like our opinion didn’t matter.” She went on to describe Mr. Bergman as very humble, an amazing teacher and person.

Mr. Bergman spoke of Natalie, calling her courageous for going to college in Texas, humble, “such a blessing”, and genuine as the one word to describe her. He said that she liked to have parties in advisory and that there were so many funny moments with her in class.

Mathematics teacher Gregory Garb had Natalie as a student in pre-calc for her senior year and described her as genuine. “I like how she is genuine and real; Not deceptive in any way.” He said that she was always looking for comic relief and has gone through a lot. “She seeks advice from those she trusts for herself, and that was not easy.”

Natalie said that Mr. Garb was a good guy. “He always wanted to know about how you were doing and how everything was going so it was cool to see that he cared about the students.” She gave “big props” to the fact that he bikes to school almost every day. “That’s just a thing I could never do.”