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 Green, photos by Todd Fairchild

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 terrific teen from Northwest Catholic High School.

Maeve Kearns – “Future speech pathologist”

Maeve is a graduate of Northwest Catholic High School and is now a student at UConn.

When asked what activity helped shape her life, volleyball was the answer. Maeve started playing volleyball at a young age, and continued the sport throughout high school. She was honored with the role of captain for several years, and twice named All-Conference.

Maeve has served as an assistant coach for the West Hartford Youth Volleyball Clinic and worked with special needs kids through Unified Volleyball, giving her a chance to combine other things that are important to her – volunteering and helping people. Maeve has also volunteered at the St. Justin’s food pantry.

Maeve’s chosen major – speech pathology – fits her personality and life goals. “It gives me the opportunity to help others and work with children, which are two things that I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.”

Maeve’s role models? Her parents. “They are good people and always stress kindness to everyone,” she said. They have helped her prioritize what’s important in her life.

While at Northwest Catholic, Maeve was inducted into the National Honor Society.

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