Frapp, Beasley led Robbinsville High Class of 2024
Robbinsville – The melting pot that is public education often unites students with very different interests.
Outside of math and a shared desire to enter the field of healthcare, Memory Ann Marie Frapp and Emma Grace Beasley have little else in common.
Beasley spends her free time training and riding horses; Frapp has played in the dirt herself since she was four – only her time has been spent on a softball field. Beasley has grown up in Graham County; Frapp arrived in 2019, by way of Oklahoma.
No matter their differing backgrounds, the two did find one common bond: Frapp and Beasley are the Robbinsville High School Class of 2024’s respective valedictorian and salutatorian.
“I always liked horses – my grandma was really big into horses – so my mom started taking me to riding lessons,” Beasley said of her draw to horses. “I started riding nine years ago. Three years into that, I got my own horses that I raised and trained; one of them, I used to compete all over the South to barrel race and pole bend. I just started getting into roping and I train horses for other people, too.”
“The first time I ever played softball, my sister (Patience) was playing and they didn’t have enough players,” Frapp recalled. “It was just T-ball, but I started following in her footsteps. She started to pitch one year, so I wanted to pitch. I wanted to be just like her, so that’s how it happened. I did travel ball for a long time, until I moved here.”
The daughter of Albert Rose and Valerie Frapp – and a member of the Potawatomi Tribe – Memory admittedly didn’t channel the majority of her focus on academics until she entered high school.
“I didn’t have the best grades in middle school; I was more focused on sports,” Memory said. “But as soon as I hit high school, I realized that softball was only going to last me four more years.”
On the other hand, Emma – the daughter of Bobby and Laura Beasley – came by her academic drive honest. She has already obtained her associate’s in both arts and science from Tri-County Community College, a degree she earned with honors.
“I’ve always focused on it,” said Emma. “Mom was second in her class, so she’s always pushed me to do my best.”
With both eyeing a career in healthcare, Memory and Emma were each involved in the popular Robbinsville High School chapter of HOSA (Health Occupational Students of America). Memory was the treasurer for two years.
Memory plans to obtain a nursing degree at Western Carolina University; Emma will major in medical sonography at Southwestern Community College. Just miles apart in college, both say they want to stay in the area and help fill the critical healthcare gap that is missing in much of Western North Carolina.
But for now, the two are still taking in the reality of graduating. Reaching the top of the ranks means Memory and Emma were the first two that received diplomas Friday; they then watched their other classmates file behind them to do the same. As expected, the takeaway was different for each.
“I wasn’t sad; I was happy,” Emma definitively said.
“The reality hit of growing up, so it was kind of sad,” Memory added. “But it happened a lot faster than I thought it would.”