Dare to Excel: Grace Schlansker

Posted 3/14/23

It’s rare to find a student who fully exemplifies the attributes leadership, dedication, and academics, but Warrenton High School student Grace Schlansker may be that student.

Schlansker is …

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Dare to Excel: Grace Schlansker

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It’s rare to find a student who fully exemplifies the attributes leadership, dedication, and academics, but Warrenton High School student Grace Schlansker may be that student.

Schlansker is an officer for Warrenton’s FFA Club, and co-led the club’s recent Meals of Hope campaign, which fundraised and packaged 20,000 meal servings to be distributed to local food pantries. She is also a high-performing student who plans to graduate high school with two-year’s-worth of college credits.

Schlansker is currently enrolled in college-level classes in accounting, sociology, literature, algebra, animal science, art appreciation and anthropology.

“My goal is to be able to have most of my general education credits out of the way. As I sit right now, I already have 40 credit hours. I’ll be pretty much a junior when I go into college,” Schlansker noted. “I want to be a vet, and I want to reduce my time as much as possible. If I have the drive right now to work like that, hopefully it will help me in the long run.”

Schlansker is relatively new to Warrenton, having moved schools in her junior year from Timberland in Wentzville. She explained that she joined FFA because she wanted to be on the club’s trapshooting team, but that it turned out to be a school community where she was supported and encouraged to become more involved.

“I found that I love it a lot, and want to keep being involved,” Schlansker commented.

Q: What did you do to help plan Meals of Hope?
“We were in charge of the logistics of how many sponsors each student needed to get ... and we picked a date and decided the logistics (for meal packing). In order to get the word out, we made fliers and each student got those. And then I was interviewed on the radio and spoke there about it.”

Q: What other FFA activities are you involved in?
“I’m the assistant historian, so I’m currently working on the scrapbook that records all of our events for the year.”

Q: Is it tough to manage all your college classes and activities?
“There are some days where it definitely is challenging. I call those ‘dance it out’ kind of days, where you just dance just because it’s too much, so you just sit there and dance for a bit.”

Q: How do you stay organized?
“I’m definitely a list person.”

Q: Does anything else help you balance everything?
“It sounds weird, but being able to work. At work at a vet clinic in Wentzville. And I have my own animals ... just being out there with them and feeding them at morning and night is a stress reliever.”

Q: Where are you going to college?
“The University of Missouri — Mizzou.”

Q: Is there any advice that you would give to younger students?
“Find your passion and run with it. That’s pretty cliche, but it holds true.
“Then my second piece of advice would be that even if you’re not super excited about the classes you’re in now ... it will get better. Once you find something you love, it will be great.”

Favorite food: Fruit
Favorite movie: “The Notebook”
Favorite show: “Gilmore Girls”
Favorite music: Older country music
Favorite destination: My grandparents’ cottage in Chautauqua, Illinois

Dare to Excel, Warrenton High School

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