“In grade school I liked almost everything,” Greco said. “It wasn’t really until we started switching into different forms of science that I realized how much I liked it.”
Her father said he and his wife knew even before elementary school that their daughter had a great interest in learning.
“What really caught our eye early on was that she loved to have us read to her, and then she would actually memorize the bedtime books and she would read them back to us, though she was doing it from memory,” said John Greco. “Once she started to read on her own, she was – was and still is – a voracious reader. Growing up myself I never read near the number of books she has. She loves to read to learn and she loves to read for pleasure.”
Greco credited Dennis Skalla’s AP chemistry class at the high school with helping her find her focus.
“Chemistry is a combination of hard science and math,” she said. “I always knew I wanted to do math and science, and it was the merging them together into one subject was what really appealed to me.”
Greco’s original plan was to go to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a much smaller school than UMass Amherst. In fact, that’s partly why she changed her mind.
“I decided that because I grew up in a small town I wanted to go to a bigger school so I could have endless possibilities,” she said. “They have everything [at UMass]. I could picture myself eating in the cafeteria and walking around the campus. It’s kind of forcing me to be independent, but I can go home if I need to.”
That relative closeness to home was also important to Abrams, the class of 2012’s salutatorian. Abrams amassed a four-year grade point average of 100.033. She’s been a member of Key Club, the National Honor Society and the Book Club. She’s been a long time member of the high school choir, All-County Choir and All-State Choir, and has studied acting, voice and dance at the New York Conservatory for the Arts. Abrams will attend Marist College in the fall, with a focus on fashion merchandising. Though her official bio listed the likelihood of pursuing a master’s degree in business, Abrams said she didn’t want to be held to that.
“I don’t know about that part,” she said. “I kind of threw that in there. We’ll see how it goes.”
Indecisiveness, Abrams admits, is not out of character.
“I applied for four different majors with 13 different schools,” she said. “I was mainly looking at NYU, Marist and C.W. Post in Ithaca. NYU is in the city, which is really far away. C.W. Post is C.W. Post.”
Marist won out because of their strong fashion merchandising program, Abrams said, adding that the appeal of that particular course of study went well beneath the surface.
“I’m really interested in fashion and how people express themselves,” she said. “It’s kind of like psychology and business and everything all in one.”
After beginning her school days in a local private Montessori program, Abrams began attending Mount Marion Elementary in the second grade.
“I loved it,” she said. “All the teachers were really nice. I still have friends from elementary school.”
Making the transition from elementary school to junior high wasn’t easy, in part because of a rare fashion faux pas.
“I didn’t want to let elementary school go, but what did I know?” Abrams said. “I think the biggest problem was that I had a backpack in junior high, and that was a no-no. You’re not supposed to have backpacks in junior high. It was rule of the land. It was frowned upon.”
Abrams had a great enthusiasm for math when she got to high school, and by her junior and senior years she was also quite taken by English and social studies. And while she has a professed interest in fashion, it’s strictly from a merchandising and not design perspective.
“I don’t draw very well,” she said. “I wish I did.”
Abrams is looking forward to college, though she said she’s learned quite a lot during her time as a student in Saugerties.
“I think having the small classes that Saugerties has, you understood where everyone was coming from and you had their perspective added to your own,” she said.
Greco said she’s also looking forward to college, though she still has to find closure with her time as a student in Saugerties.
“I think I’m kind of in denial,” she said. “I should be feeling sad, but I feel excited. I almost feel like I’m going back to Saugerties next year, but I know I’m not. I need a little more time to come to terms with it.”
Abrams is spending her summer working in the box office at the Woodstock Playhouse and as a camp counselor at the New York Conservancy for the Arts. She said she plans to spend a lot of time with friends while still in Saugerties, and also plans on succumbing to something of a local tradition.
“I’m going to go to Dallas Hot Weiners for the first time,” she said. “It’s this complex I have. My friends said I have to at least try the cheese fries. I don’t want to be the one Saugertesian who doesn’t like it.”
Greco said she hopes to spend as much time with friends, family and her little sister while still in Saugerties. But first there’s the matter of completing her commencement speech. Though she wasn’t prepared to offer a peek at her speech, she did have some advice for young kids in Saugerties who might want to follow in her footsteps and succeed in school.
“I would just say to do your best at everything,” she said. “Try a bunch of different courses to see which you like best and try your hardest because you never really know whether or not you would have succeeded.”
