When Ann Louise Atherton stepped into a Hominy Valley Elementary School classroom to give a presentation about the human heart, each valve and vein on the diagram reflected her personal story of beating the odds. The former Hominy Valley student was back in her old school, this time as a teacher.
Ann Louise, a Martin L. Nesbitt Jr. Discovery Academy senior, was born with severe heart defects that put her life in jeopardy. She had her first surgery at 22 weeks in-utero, becoming one of the first girls in the world to undergo fetal heart surgery. Her parents were told she might not make it to kindergarten, or that she might need a heart transplant by age 5. She’s had four additional heart surgeries since then.
Those early struggles bred a resilience and future focus that shows up in everything she does. Atherton is the treasurer of HOSA, a school club for future medical professionals; a member of the National Honor Society and a senior representative on the NDA Student Council. She is dual-enrolled at A-B Tech, and she co-founded the Hope for Healthcare club, which sends care packages to children with serious illnesses and appreciation letters to the hospitals and people who work tirelessly to treat them…