When senior Katherine Becker first moved to the Island from Wisconsin the summer before her freshman year, she didn’t know many of her peers. That quickly changed when she joined Best Buddies, a club that fosters one-on-one friendships between students with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). 

Now the co-valedictorian of her class, Ms. Becker has embraced her washashore status, in part thanks to the club that first embraced her when she arrived. 

“Everyone [in the club] is super inclusive, super kind and I never feel out of place,” said Ms. Becker, recalling boisterous karaoke sessions after school and bowling attempts on club outings. “That’s something that I got from Best Buddies, the idea of everyone having a place.” 

Over the past four years, Ms. Becker has found a place for herself in music (she’s played violin for the high school orchestra and the Cape Symphony Youth Orchestra), languages and academics at the high school. She credits her top spot in the class to her strong passion for learning, and the people who pushed her to succeed. 

Growing up, summers were never a time to stop learning, Ms. Becker said, and she leaned into summer lessons and workbooks. 

The same was true for last summer when it came to Best Buddies. After attending the Best Buddies leadership conference in Indiana, Ms. Becker spent her last few weeks of summer writing an application for a Tower Foundation grant. In October, she heard back: the club had won $15,000.

That money will go to sending four students, two of them students with IDD, to this year’s leadership conference. It has also funded Best Buddies sweatshirts, bowling trips to the Barn Bowl & Bistro, and bringing in speakers from the state department of developmental services.

“It’s amazing what she’s done,” said Kevin McGrath, school librarian and Best Buddies advisor. “She’s a force. She’s done more for the club than any other student leader we’ve had.” 

This summer, Ms. Becker is working at Camp Jabberwocky and Island Autism’s summer camp. She hopes to continue working one-on-one with people, a passion that has led her to pursue medicine. 

Next year, she will return to the midwest to attend University of Wisconsin-Madison and study neurobiology in the honors program. A lover of problem solving and Spanish, Ms. Becker hopes to find a challenge in her upcoming coursework, as well as a blend of her passions.

“Cross cultural communication in the field is really important,” she said. “I just think [medicine] is a really good fit for me.” 

Ms. Becker is interested especially in women’s health and oncology. Many of the women in her life are older, and she learned firsthand about the lack of research on topics in women’s health, such as menopause. Last summer, she worked for the hospital on the community needs assessment, a project that allowed her to get to know the Island’s own challenges with healthcare. Ms. Becker worked on getting a survey out to younger populations and LGBTQ populations, two demographics that were underrepresented in the assessment. 

“Something that really stuck out to me was the difficulty with traveling off Island and getting care off Island, because we don’t have a lot of specialists here,” she said. 

Mr. McGrath said Ms. Becker’s ability to listen and empathize with all kinds of people will make her an excellent medical practitioner.

“She’s definitely found her voice,” said Mr. McGrath. “She’s really blossomed.” 

She is also a good, committed friend, he said. He recalled Ms. Becker sitting with her buddy, freshman Ariel Meyer, on the boat and bus to the Unified Track meets, laughing and being silly. Unified Sports is a division of the Special Olympics, where students with IDD compete as a team on the varsity level. 

In her speech to the graduating class, Ms. Becker will reflect on the Island’s singularity, sharing the things she’s noticed that makes the Vineyard special. Public speaking usually makes her anxious, she said, but for this speech she doesn’t feel as worried. She credits this to the students she’s met in Best Buddies, citing their example of positivity, speaking and singing in front of people and approaching the things that scare you with a smile. 

“Watching all these people go out to perform, or to speak, or to share a story — just the way they approach it is something that I definitely took away,” she said.