FARMINGTON – When describing Bethany Ann McCallum, one phrase comes to mind: tiny girl, enormous heart.

Since arriving at the University of Maine at Farmington four years ago, the 5-foot-tall Community Health Education major has given life – both on campus and off – her all, charging headfirst into volunteering, schooling and cultivating relationships with friends and faculty that she knows will last a lifetime.

She has volunteered as a crisis worker at Sexual Assault Victims Emergency Services, cared for residents at Life Enrichment Advancing People, ran on the UMF cross-county club, served as president of the student-athlete advisory committee, helped out as a peer educator and kept her grades up enough to make the Dean’s List more often than not.

“I am very much a self-starter. I am not a person who can just do college.”

That’s what is going to make it so hard to leave after graduation, she says.

This last week at college for the 22-year-old from Buxton has been nostalgic, she said. “The last few days, I’ve just had to sit back and say, ‘I did it. It’s really over.'”

Now that her schoolwork is wrapped up, McCallum just has a few small tasks to complete before heading out of town on Route 4 towards her undoubtedly promising future.

Really, just little stuff; like packing up four years of memories, saying good-bye to the hundreds of students, faculty and community members who have changed her life and picking up that diploma she worked so hard for.

And one other minor thing – strapping on her four-inch heels so on Saturday, she can peer over the podium at her 419 classmates and their families and stand and deliver the 2003 student commencement speech.

McCallum admits public speaking isn’t her favorite thing. Sure, she says, class presentations are a cinch once she squashes all those flapping butterflies in her stomach, but giving a commencement speech in front of hundreds of people?

The speech though, is just another in her long list of selfless tasks. It’s for her parents, Robert and Vicki, who never had the opportunity to don that black gown and tasseled cap. Bethany wants to make her parents proud, and ensure that mom and dad will never forget their daughter’s graduation.

“It’s something for them,” she says. “I wouldn’t be who I was without them. They always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as I worked hard for it. So when I stand up there, I am really representing them.”

For the McCallum family, there is no way the flurry of graduations in the spring of 2003 will ever be forgotten.

Last weekend, Bethany’s identical twin sister, Sarah, graduated from college in New Hampshire and next month, her younger brother Ryan will collect his high school diploma. Even the baby of the family, Bethany’s younger sister Katie isn’t immune to the graduation bug – she, too, will walk down the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance,” graduating from middle school in June.

“Coming to UMF is the best decision I ever made,” said Bethany, just a few dozen hours away from graduation day. “College has just been an eye-opening experience. It’s wonderful, that’s what makes it so hard to leave. It’s been the best four years of my life so far, but I still know the best is yet to come.”

For the last few days at school, she has wanted to be awake every second, hoping to savor every last drop of Farmington.

Quick with a hug, and even quicker with a warming smile, the blonde Bethany isn’t sure just what she will miss most about the place she has called home for the past four years.

Maybe it will be summer, though it could be fall, spring or winter, she said. Or it could be just walking down the streets of Farmington, where people actually smile and step aside for you. “I’ll really miss everything,” Bethany said, looking down and rubbing her misting eyes.

For her speech, which is peppered with words of wisdom from Mother Teresa, Barbara Bush and Robert Frost, it comes as no surprise she will talk about her family, thanking them for helping her become the person she is. Her message – Life is a promise, fulfill it.

As for her future, Bethany is satisfied knowing she doesn’t have a plan. For the summer, she will work at a children’s camp, spend time with her boyfriend of two and half years, Eric, and after that, she hopes to work designing workplace health and wellness plans.

“You have to keep your mind open,” Bethany says, before running off to grab her roommates and hit the senior social luau. “You can’t plan dreams, they just happen. I know I can do anything.”

UMF’s 150th commencement ceremony will be held at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, May 17, in the parking lot behind the student center.

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