Staff writer
Former Marion High School valedictorian, class of 2006, Rachel Davidson could only come back to Marion to see her family once during the holiday season. She chose to celebrate Christmas on Thanksgiving, an event she dubbed “Thanksmas.”
“We put up Christmas lights and I had to listen to Christmas music,” Davidson said.
Davidson is halfway through her first year in the work force. After graduating from Notre Dame in May, she became a training intern for a home health care company based in Philadelphia.
“What I do now is I set up rooms,” she said. “Before that I was developing a training video.”
Davidson graduated with a bacehlor’s degree in psychology and her original plan was to follow in her parents footsteps and become a teacher. She wants to go back to school to earn a master’s degree and has not given up on the idea of becoming a teacher.
She moved to Philadelphia to be closer to her boyfriend of 3.5 years, Steve Meehan. Meehan, who is a bank market researcher, is originally from Philadelphia and thought South Bend was a small town.
“I had a class that was as big as MHS,” Davidson said. “My entire high school in one room.”
One of the activities Davidson and Meehan did while they were home was watch a video from one of Davidson’s summer programs during high school. It was one example of the good times Davidson had while growing up in Marion.
“It was fun because you could be so involved here,” she said. “There was swimming and basketball and a lot of things to do in the summer.”