We-Ha–West Hartford Magazine’s seventh annual ‘Terrific Teens’ spotlights local teens who are making a difference in the community – and for this year’s photo shoot we headed to Westfarms.
By Aaron Greene
Even though this is West Hartford Magazine’s seventh annual feature on local teens in West Hartford, the task of choosing the young adults to interview hasn’t gotten any easier.
Our goal has always been to find the kids who capture attention not just because they earned the best grades, or the most points in a game, but because they are all around good kids. As you can imagine, there is no short supply of eligible students.
This year features 2017 graduates who hail from Conard, Hall, Kingswood Oxford, and Northwest Catholic. Our tradition is to pick one male and one female from each school – but the male from Hall has a twin brother, so we had to be inclusive!
Why Westfarms? We strive to seek unique areas of town that maybe have history, or significance to the families. Since Westfarms has been a part of our collective history for over 40 years, it provided an interesting back drop for our photo shoot this year.
Here’s our female teen from Conard.
Gwendolyn (Gwen) Geisler – “Future Dentist”
Gwen Geisler is a 2017 Conard High School graduate who now attends Colby College in Waterville, ME. She plans to major in biology, on the pre-med/pre-dental track with future plans including dental school.
Gwen could easily answer the question about her primary focus in high school with one word: “Sports.” She enjoyed outstanding success in every sport she played, earning 12 varsity letters – the most anyone could possibly earn – during her high school career and captaining three teams as a senior.
Her best sport was lacrosse, and she was a two-time All-American at Conard and Hartford Courant Player of the Year as a senior. She also earned Academic All-State Honors as a senior and plans to continue her lacrosse career at Colby.
Gwen played varsity field hockey as a freshman, but then switched to cross country where she twice earned All-State honors. She also earned All-Conference honors for indoor track.
In addition to sports, Gwen was well accomplished academically in high school. She was a member of the National Honor Society and the Latin National Honor Society as well, and received the President’s Academic Award. Combining her achievements in sports and academics, she was named Conard’s CAS-CIAC Scholar-Athlete and received the Lawrence R. Philippon Memorial Award in 2017.
Gwen’s favorite quote summarizes her approach to sports and life: “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
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