Spring 2003 - Leaders at Home

Leaders at Home
Showing leadership while walking a different path

By Tenia S. King

Talk to most students and the conversation turns to school, social events, and maybe part-time jobs. But full-time teaching, military service, university training, working with teams across the country, and making the news deadline for the regional paper—these are topics of conversation that these home schooled students are eager to discuss. Meet Florida leaders who have used the benefits of flexibility, self-motivation, and individual attention in home schooling to pursue excellence.

Guarding the Goal
Sometimes, Heather ZurBurg, 18, is just too busy to go to school. Other times, it’s just what she needs.

See, ZurBurg has a goal, one she tends to regularly. By eighth grade, she was the goalie for the Jacksonville Fury, a soccer team for girls 15 and under. Problem was, she lived in Gainesville, about two hours away, and practicing and playing for two hours in Jacksonville three times a week was taking its toll.

ZurBurg wanted to create the best training and schooling plan possible for herself, so in eighth grade, she and her parents decided to home school. “It just felt like there was so much dead time at school I could be using better,” she says. She wanted to play in the Olympic Development program, and to do so, she needed to beef up her training regimen. Her new schedule, free of class periods and bells, allowed her to fit an hour of morning training and weightlifting and an hour of individual goalkeeper training before she tended to her studies. Condensing her schoolwork around a classroom of one gave her the free time she needed. “It was so much easier to make the trips to Jacksonville,” she says.

During her ninth grade year, ZurBurg dipped a toe back into her local high school. She took Italian at Buchholz High School, a first-period class that started at 7:20. “I was in and out in an hour, and my brain was awake and ready to train,” she says. “A foreign language is hard to do on your own!” But training hard was showing dividends as she made the state team for the Olympic Development Program for the first time, playing there from 1998 to 2000.

“The skills I was gaining in soccer benefited me in home schooling and vice versa,” Zurburg says. “There’s only one goal keeper on the field and only one of me being home schooled. I needed all the self-motivation and discipline I had. With home schooling, it shows a lot of character that you get up on your own than just go to class like everybody else.”

ZurBurg was determined to find the best she needed to fulfill her goals. “It was worth it to go to the Jacksonville team because of the quality of coaching,” she says. “I had more opportunity there to really lead the team from the back.” She took the same view in her education and headed back her sophomore year for Italian, drama, and Advanced Placement English. “The high school could provide some things that I needed better than I could, but I still preferred to do a lot on my own.” She says students need to be willing to take charge to get what they want out of life. “By being homeschooled, I had the chance to get the foundation I needed to strengthen my body. I had time for coordination drills, weight-lifting, and technical training,” she says. “But I also got a much more take-charge mentality. I can do whatever’s necessary without waiting for someone to tell me to do it.”

ZurBurg also cautions about getting stuck in a rut. “I changed coaches based on what my needs were at that time,” she says. “I did the same thing with school.” That willingness to find the best to suit her needs led her back to Buchholz full time for her junior year. “When you sign up for the NCAA clearinghouse at the end of junior year, you want them to see all your credits, elective credits, and involvement,” she says. “It seemed like a good thing for me to do for at least that year.” Back in a traditional environment, she continued with a tough academic schedule of AP classes and her usual grueling training schedule, but she also served on Junior Senate. “I got into Student Government because I wanted to build my leadership,” she says. “I was a leader on the field, but I wanted to be one off the field, too.”

Her needs to make her mark on the field have led her to a much different environment this year. She put her name out on the internet looking for a team on which to be a guest player for the Orange Classic Invitation in Miami in 2000. The coach who took her on, Ko Thanadabouth, asked her to go on to the President’s Cup Tournament in Phoenix in 2001. She kept in contact with the coach, and her teammates, and in 2002, she was invited to spend the summer training with the girls of the Windy City Pride team. The summer went so well that the team, ranked 12th in the nation and known by colleges across the country, offered her a spot for her upcoming senior year, if she would come and live in Illinois. After talking it over with her parents and finding a family to host her and serve as her guardian, she went, beginning her senior year at Lincoln Way Central Community High School in New Lenox.

“I’m in the best possible environment to prepare for college soccer. Right now, being in a high school makes it easier for the NCAA and colleges to keep track of me,” ZurBurg says. “It’s hard being away from my folks, but I’m exactly where I need to be.”

Her standards for herself haven’t changed, even without her mom and dad there to watch over her. With a school schedule that includes psychology, sociology, and an AP seminar including European history, literature, and language, ZurBurg stays busy off the field, but guarding the soccer goal is still the focus of her life. “I have a huge support system with my parents, coaches, and teammates,” she says. “On the team I make my teammates responsible. I insist other people step up and be responsible and do their part.

Driven to Teach
Many students practice martial arts, perform in plays, and volunteer in their communities. But Jamie Womble has nearly completed her two-year college degree and is a teaching assistant at a local private school--and she’s only 17. At 15, she started Indian River Community College’s dual-enrollment program and by this spring will earn an Associate of Arts degree in education. She admits that at first she often procrastinated. “I got over that quickly,” she says. While finishing up at IRCC, she’s also taking two classes at Atlantic Baptist College in Ft. Pierce. “Three of my four classes are taken over the internet, so I only have to go to the college once a week for a three-hour class.

“Homeschooling has allowed me to have more one-on-one attention,” Womble says. She has the time to pursue her teaching assistant duties full-time from 8:30 to 2:30 p.m. on weekdays. She teaches 13 students from first-grade to 11th grade. She enjoys teaching so much that she also leads a Sunday school class for three to nine-year-old children. “I often dress up to illustrate a story.”

Besides working towards a degree and teaching, Womble also rehearses for a community theater production of the musical “The King and I” three times a week. She gets her studying in during rehearsal breaks. As if this isn’t enough, she plans to start training to become an instructor after getting her black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She’s a member of a self-defense crew, which meets every two months, and she teaches the first half of the course. “I lay down the basic rules and process for self-defense,” she says. The oldest of five children, she enjoys practicing Tae Kwon Do with her family.

Teaching is her passion, and home schooling is one tool Womble has used to live that out. “Without home schooling, our family wouldn’t be as close, and I wouldn’t be in college right now,” she says. It also affords the flexibility to fit teaching opportunities into her schedule, and she has enjoyed the “twists and turns” allowed in home school education. She doesn’t hesitate when asked what’s next. Womble’s goals are clear. “I will get my BA in Elementary Christian Education,” she says. “I should have that by the time I’m 20.”

Leading the Ranks
Not many 15-year-olds prefer to be called Lieutenant, but Campbell, a cadet with the Naples Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, enjoys his title and everything that comes with it. On Monday nights, he gears up with pilots at the Naples airport and from the co-pilot seat he assists during orientation flights.

As a home school student, Campbell has the freedom needed to be an active cadet. “You get to choose your own hours,” says Campbell, whose work with the Naples Squadron began when he was only 13. He does most of his class work on the Switched-On Schoolhouse computer program, which combines traditional and technological learning skills. Also, he wakes up between 6:30 and 7:30 every morning to feed the family farm animals and he especially enjoys giving trail rides on horses to members of his community.

The chance to experience excitement motivates Campbell to work hard as a cadet. "It's a good opportunity to do things that other people don’t do,” he says. Taking photos of damaged vessels, serving on disaster relief missions, tending to aircraft crashes, and flying along the Florida coast to look for boats are all duties involved in his work. “I can get onto a military base, camp out for a week, and live like a soldier,” he says. Campbell aspires to become an Air Force fighter pilot after studying at a military college, and he hopes that his experience in the Naples squadron will mean higher wages and a higher rank.

Living for Music
The background music on Dan Klintworth’s voice mail captures his love for classical music and composer John Williams. Klintworth, 16, idolizes Williams, the man behind the movie scores of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Jaws, and he wants to be a soundtrack composer as well. “When I saw a Disney movie one day, something clicked,” he says. “I could pick out all of the individual parts in the music.” Organizing his time around this dream is easier with home schooling, which lets him work at his own pace while developing his musical talents. “I’ve been focused on my music, and I practice for several hours a day."

At six, Klintworth started music lessons, and he says soon after “it took fire.” Playing the flute for the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra and the local high school band allows him to interact with other music lovers. He also plays the piano at church and participates in band events and concerts. The 16-year-old, who studies orchestras as well as the lives of composers, composed and arranged "Celebro Libertas," which was performed in a fall band concert. By accompanying solo and ensemble students during performances, playing the piano at weddings and funerals, and arranging choral soundtracks and orchestrated music, Klintworth shares his musical abilities with anyone who needs his services. “Music is my social life,” he says. “I really enjoy it. I get a feeling of accomplishment.”

Klintworth, who has been writing music for almost four years, travels more than an hour every three weeks to take composition lessons from the associate dean of the music department at Stetson University. He knows what he wants out of college—a good music program, of course--and right now, he’s considering Wheaton College in Illinois because it seems to fit his criteria.

Klintworth’s mother, Lillian, is confident that homeschooling her son was one of the best decisions her family ever made. “I know he wouldn’t be where he is in his music if not for being homeschooled. He just wouldn’t have time.” She says he’s constantly doing something related to music. “His life is devoted to music. Several wonderful private music teachers, as well as our music director at church, have all invested much into his life.”

Getting the Story
Writing for a city newspaper is usually done by college interns and full-time reporters, but Matthew Puchferran, 15, is a rare exception. As a Sun- Sentinel Newspaper “Next Generation” staff writer, he improves his writing and interviewing skills. He also is the editor of the Boca Youth Quarterly, a local home school newsletter. “We have more than 50 subscribers,” Puchferran says. Last spring, after submitting 10 writing samples and copies of his Boca Youth Quarterly newsletter, he became the first home school student ever on the Next Generation staff.

As a budding journalist, Puchferran enjoys traveling to destinations he’s studied and writing about them. "We studied Gettysburg, and after that we went there," says Sue Puchferran, Matthew’s mother. While studying the Civil War, the family visited Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and they traveled to Jamestown and Williamsburg after studying early American settlers. Puchferran has also traveled to Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, where he volunteered at health clinics for the poor and worked with kids in the Los Ranchos Amigos orphanage. Traveling alone, Puchferran lived with a family in Mexico. Afterward, he wrote an article about his trip to Mexico and other traveling ventures for the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

As if his reporting accomplishments aren’t enough, he’s also a coach for the Christian Home School Athletic Association and practices soccer daily. “I enjoy working with younger children,” Puchferran says. Spending time with his family, taking trips, and having time to explore his interests are all home schooling benefits. “I do a lot of extracurricular activities. I’m out every night and weekend,” he says.

Puchferran participates in the Duke University Talent Identification Program, which identifies gifted children and provides resources to enhance their academic development. It includes a six-month preparatory course for the SAT.

Next year, he looks forward to continuing his writing and participating in the dual- enrollment program at a local college.