St. Mary School's Grade 12 class has graduated, celebrating the end of their high school career with the traditional hat toss. (Susan McNeil/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

Graduation 2023

Career in science beckons St. Mary valedictorian

Jun 26, 2023 | 4:13 PM

Rylee McKay may have been at the top of 198 students graduating from St. Mary High School in Prince Albert this year and she does not have her entire future mapped out, but she knows one thing: she’ll be studying bioengineering at McGill University this September.

The pull to get women and girls into STEM careers is not lost on her either.

“I’ve always been very passionate about math and science and the teachers at St. Mary have really just grown my love for that,” she explained. “So I always knew that STEM was 100 per cent my path and I just got this awesome opportunity to move to Montreal and I thought I had to take it.”

Rylee McKay is this year’s valedictorian. She will attend McGill University in September studying bioengineering. (Susan McNeil/paNOW)

Rylee’s spent her entire school career in Prince Albert, starting with kindergarten at Ecole’ Vickers.

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Education has made her a more confident person, she says, and her teachers have played a huge role in her choices and will continue to go forward.

“They are such a loving and understanding group and they really do give you that freedom to grow as an individual. The same with my family of course. They’ve given me freedom to make the good choices and the bad choices and grow into an individual,” said Rylee.

This year’s graduating class was in Grade Nine when the pandemic started and spent 50 per cent of their high school career not in school.

“Grade Nine and Ten are those years where you really start to grow as individuals so it completely shaped who we ended up becoming because there was that lack of access to your friends are being able to hang out,” Rylee said.

The hiatus from traditional classrooms changed how her class interacted in some ways and she had a different friend group after COVID restrictions ended than she did before.

The 2023 graduating class from St. Mary School numbered 198, with 32 of those graduating with great distinction.

Andrew Harris gave the salutatory address.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @princealbertnow