He glows : Kody Tinnel

AVAH CRANE

Age: 18

By Stacie Ball | Photo by Leverage Photography

Carroll High School senior Avah Crane developed a passion for creating art, taking photos, and helping others at a young age. She has been working with special needs children in the community since she was 13 years old and recently began shooting photos of Carroll sports. She continues to find creative ways to use her talents to improve the lives of others.

Crane started volunteering for the University of Saint Francis’ Jester’s program as a teaching artist in the visual arts and storytelling classes when she was in 8th grade. Jesters is a performing arts group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), ages 8 to senior citizens. The purpose of Jesters is to enhance the quality of life for those with IDD by engaging them in the world of creative arts. Jesters offers dance, theatre, storytelling, music, instruments, visual arts, improv, and photography classes on Saturday mornings at the University of Saint Francis from September to March.

“Our activities are designed to inspire growth, develop identity, and foster meaningful connections,” Crane said. “In this way, the Jesters program uses art as a vehicle to engage people with IDD as productive contributing community members and artists.”

This year, she was excited to manage all the social media for the organization in addition to teaching classes.

You might say Crane’s love of art started when she was a toddler. Since she could walk, she has accompanied her father, a professional photographer, to work events. She quickly developed a fondness for photography and has been dabbling in it ever since. Judd, at Leverage Photography, was her inspiration for taking a shot at sports photography.

Her biggest accomplishment art-wise has been her success in the Scholastics Art Awards. She has won various awards at the regional level and snagged two national Gold Medals for photography during her sophomore year. It was an honor to have those pieces displayed in New York City. This year will be her final entry to the event.

At school, Crane is heavily involved in the champions together/unified program, where she gets to play sports with the disabled community at school. She loves it! She also has a passion for travel volleyball and passes on the love of the game by coaching elementary and middle school teams at Summit.

“I have to be super diligent with my time,” Crane explained when asked how she manages everything. She has multiple calendars to keep track of her family life, social life, challenging school load with four AP classes, sports photos, and coaching. She said, “To avoid falling behind, I try to use my time effectively and rarely take any time to rest. It is hard work, but it all pays off!”

Crane plans to study Psychology and Neuroscience and someday attain her Ph.D. She wants to continue art and photography as a hobby, intending to get involved in sports photography during and after college. After this snapshot of Crane’s life, we cannot wait to see the next page of the album! a

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FEATURE | Feature Focus Wellness Resolutions

By Bethany Beebe Your challenge is to make it past January 19.

According to research, January 19 is the most common date people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions. While about 44% of Americans in one study held weight loss as a resolution, living a healthy life is a multifaceted endeavor. Overall wellness is more than a number on the scale, and the start of a new year is a time many evaluate how improvement can be made.

Goal Selection Goal Achievement

Selecting a shorter list of goals to achieve — whether for January 1 or any of the other equally-important 364 days of the year — leads to higher levels of success. One source recommends writing down the goals you hope to make happen on sticky notes, with one idea on each small sheet. After your sticky notes are made, put them on the wall, with those most important to you at the top. After grouping the ideas together, organizing the similar near one another, give thought to what you value as most important; the most challenging part. From the top of the list, you can create specific, tangible goals. Those tangible goals can be of many strains and put minimum strain on one’s comfort zone. The physical is, obviously, important. Human beings are complex in their spiritual, psychological, and social needs, though. Perhaps your goals include prioritizing prayer, meditation, or corporate worship. Maybe a support group of people with similar challenges would improve your overall wellness. Taking that group exercise class with the YMCA membership you got yourself for Christmas could get you around other, like-minded folks more frequently. In many cases, one activity can improve quality of life in more than one way. There is also more than one way to make resolution achievement a bit easier. Break down larger goals into smaller ones. You have less opportunity to become overwhelmed and more chances to celebrate success! Writing down goals with specific, understandable, defined steps also improves outcomes. Along those lines, beginning small and tracking successes along the way can assist in realizing your aims. What is attainable for those celebrations of success changes as you change. Knowing specifically what you have done grants honest perspective on the progress made. While positive outcomes are entirely possible, we cannot forget that we are only human. When setbacks or small failures happen, get back on track as quickly as possible, with a kind attitude toward yourself. Keeping a positive attitude about the entire process is also beneficial. With a little self-patience, you will still be challenging yourself with life improvements on January 20 and enjoying success each day of the year after that. a

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