“I’m kind of like the boring senior,” Hannah Boehme said, but despite having a “boring” senior year, she is living her most authentic life.

Hannah has developed her own style and confidence this year. “I used to dress a lot like how other people dressed, and…senior year I’ve just like told myself ‘It’s your last year, dress how you want to dress,'” Hannah said.  She says she feels insecure when getting dressed in the morning, but she doesn’t want to get changed once her mom has seen her in her outfit because she doesn’t want to be asked why she’s getting changed, so she’ll stay in her outfit. She says it’s been good to do that, and she’s been, “…dressing like my personality.” Hannah has a casual-comfy style when she’s not a little more dressed up with boots and flannels.

Hannah has not only grown in style and confidence but also in her academics. “I didn’t physically actually go to school until 4th grade, because of my family…my life before that…and my worst subjects were reading, writing, and math, and those are my top three strongest subjects now. So, I’ve definitely come a long way,” she proudly boasted. She was in foster care before being adopted in 2018.

Hannah isn’t Hannah without a book in her hands.  If you’re ever on a search for Hannah, you’ll find luck in the library. She’s always been a big reader. She often gets lost in books, saying she’ll need to be tapped on her shoulder to get her attention. Her all-time favorite series is the Harry Potter series, but she enjoyed the Shatter Me series she read recently. Her favorite author is Colleen Hoover because of her writing style, and she enjoys that all of her books are different. She finished 3 books over spring break, saying, “I take a book everywhere. You’ll always see me with a book…in my backpack or in my hands. Most of the time it’s in my hands because I have two other books in my backpack.”

So, it is easy to guess that Mrs. Krieg, is her favorite go-to person on campus. When she’s feeling down or there’s something going on at home, Hannah knows she can go to our librarian, Mrs. Krieg, to talk about it. She’s helped Hannah through a lot and will even sit with her for hours to help her find a book if needed because, in Hannah’s words, she is “the most pickiest reader ever.” Hannah, despite the adage, judges a book by its cover and the back of the book. She knows she won’t like a book if she doesn’t like the cover.

Outside of her main hobby, reading, Hannah is in Sahuaro’s Concert Band.  She’s been playing the clarinet since 5th grade. When Hannah was in the foster care system, nothing in her life was consistent…except for band.  She said, “I feel like the only thing that stuck with me was music. Through the last like, I don’t know, 8 years of my life, so that’s like what’s been there helping me through everything.” Hannah isn’t sure why she chose the clarinet, but she said,” I don’t want to say it kind of spoke to me because that’s weird, but it kind of did.” She’s played trumpet and oboe before, but clarinet is her calling. 

Hannah Boehme is a familiar face around campus, and if you don’t know her, you might know one of her 10+ siblings. This year, she is the only Boehme at Sahuaro, and for her, it’s a change compared to always having a sibling at the same school.  “It’s kind of weird because we’re always used to turning to each other. Even like at home, we turn to each other for something if we need something.” Hannah doesn’t get into fights, but she says, “Girls talk crap,” and when this happens, she would go to her sister for advice. She still has her friends, but it’s not the same as having family.

In 2022, Hannah’s brother Adam passed away at the beginning of his senior year.  This tragedy made last year hard for her, but almost a year and a half later, she has found that things have slowly gotten better. She still finds herself getting triggered by things like the memorial bench for Adam that’s in the library. When there’s trash on it or it is crooked, she feels like people are disrespecting it and she gets irritated. Last year, it was hard for her and her siblings to walk into band without Adam and to see a trombone (the instrument he played), but now, she still feels Adam everywhere she goes, especially in band.

“The last couple of concerts that we had, like our big concerts, the festival and everything, I felt him there, and I don’t want to say I’ve seen him because that sounds weird, but I have seen him rehearsing. Both times we were rehearsing in the auditorium I’ve seen somebody sitting out there, and then looked back and there was nobody there. And I knew it was him because there was nobody else,” Hannah shared, mentioning that she hadn’t told anyone that before. She also said, “You can definitely feel him. My mom said she feels him, and I just feel him more as I’m graduating.” Hannah also recalled that Adam was one of the only other readers in the family, and he spent a lot of time at the library. She realized, “… I don’t even know why I come to the library all the time, and now that I think about it, that’s probably one of the only reasons that I come here all the time.”

Hannah doesn’t shy away from her love for God. She used to be scared to be open about her religion, but she said, “…we only started going to church because of Adam, so it wasn’t as big, but since we’ve started going to church, I feel like I’ve been more open about it.” She used to be insecure after a girl made a snide remark about a shirt she was wearing with a bible verse on it, but now she proudly adorns her shirts with bible verses and talks openly about her religion. The confidence Hannah has gained during her senior year has allowed her to express herself and her beliefs.

“This school, it’s definitely like a family type,” Hannah said about Sahuaro. She emphasized her senior year by saying, “It’s been a good senior year, been a long senior year. Definitely been a long fighting senior year, but it’s been a good senior year.”

She’s nervous about moving on to college. She hasn’t decided where she wants to go because she’s not sure if she’s ready for a big college.  At the moment, she’s interested in Pima or PMI (Pima Medical Institute). She plans to stick with music in college and wants to become a special education teacher, specifically elementary. Hannah credited Sahuaro by saying, “…it’s one of the main reasons I want to do special education, because of this school, because of how much our school loves the people that are different.”

Senior year is a culmination of all the hard work and time you’ve put into school and yourself. For Hannah, she may be the “boring senior”, but all of her years and growth have paid off.