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Tribune/Nathan Orme - Allison Tallman
The 18-year-old will be attending Liberty University to study math while embarking on an adventure that will take her away from northern Nevada for the first time in her life — and she can hardly wait.
“I’m really excited about it,” Tallman said. “I love traveling and going other places. Everybody says to me, ‘It’s so far away,’ but I enjoy taking risks and doing new things. ... No, I’m just really excited. I can’t wait.”
Tallman has played softball at Sparks High and plans to continue her love of the game by studying math with the goal of becoming a statistician for a professional baseball team. She caught the fever at a young age when her father taught her to keep score at Major League Baseball spring training as a way to keep her occupied during games. She now hopes one day to land a career keeping stats on pitching, fielding, hitting and any other imaginable aspect of the game.
“I’ve looked it up and they get paid fairly well, but I don’t care about that,” she said. “I just enjoy it.”
Tallman settled on Liberty University after pondering a number of Christian colleges around the country. She preferred to go someplace with warm weather but it came down to a choice between Liberty and Azusa Pacific in California. She was swayed to go to the East Coast after a “college for the weekend” trip where she was amazed by how green the landscape is and being impressed with the beauty and activities available on Liberty’s campus.
But to get there she will be leaving behind her parents and her lifelong home of Sparks, where she attended Greenbrae Elementary and Dilworth Middle schools. Though she is looking forward to the next stage of her life, she plans to stay in touch with her friends and family through Facebook and Skype. Her parents are sad they won’t get to watch her softball games if she makes the Liberty team as a walk-on player next season.
“Otherwise they’re totally OK with it,” Tallmas said of her parents’ feelings on their little girl moving across the country.
Sharing the valedictorian honors with Tallman will be 18-year-old Roberto A. Lopez-Pacheco. Born in Mexico, Lopez-Pacheco came to the United States when he was very young and went to school at Agnes Risley Elementary and Sparks and Dilworth middle schools before being a Railroader. When he started high school, Lopez-Pacheco’s English language skills weren’t very good which he said was keeping him from doing well academically. But with the help of English teacher Mrs. Farias, in the 11th and 12th grades he fine-tuned his English and now expects to graduate with a grade point average above 5.0.
“She helped me develop as a person and become more hard-working,” he said. “She helped me stay on track.”
It wasn’t until he was a junior at Sparks High that he even knew what a valedictorian was but when he did and learned he was on track to possibly be one, he was very happy.
“I wasn’t trying to be the best in my class,” he said. “I was just trying to do well.”
Lopez-Pacheco now hopes to do well in the Bachelor of Science-Medical Doctor program at the University of Nevada, Reno. The BS-MD program, as it is called, offers a seven-year accelerated pathway to medical school for a small number of motivated, mature high school seniors who are serious and focused on a career in medicine. Students accepted into this program will complete the first three years of the required undergraduate curriculum at UNR, and then enter the University of Nevada School of Medicine.
When they take the stage to speak at graduation on Saturday, each of the valedictorians will have unique messages. Lopez-Pacheco wanted to keep his speech a secret, but he did say he plans to talk about overcoming people’s expectations. Tallman said she found a quote by author C.S. Lewis that she built her speech around. The gist of the quote is that you can’t learn to fly while still inside the egg.
“Everyone should follow their dreams,” she said of her message.
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