Class of 2020: Schmidt looks to career in surgery, will study at Dartmouth

Claire Schmidt has been a dancer since she was young. But a recent knee injury just may have helped get her into an Ivy League School.

The Columbia Falls senior was planning on attending Montana State University and enter its pre-med program. But in her junior year she was dancing and her knee started giving her problems, so she went to a doctor. She had a torn meniscus, the doctor, Ben Ward told her. They got to chatting about career paths and Ward, who went to Dartmouth, suggested that school to her.

So Schmidt applied and not only was she accepted, she received a full scholarship.

“Its my dream school,” she said.

Schmidt has always been interested in anatomy and surgery. She started out as an intern at Glacier Animal Hospital and helped with surgeries on various pets. She’d take pictures of the procedures.

“I’m not at all squeamish,” Schmidt said. “Human anatomy I find very interesting.”

The intern work evolved into a summer job at the local veterinarian clinic.

Not surprisingly, the daughter of Cindy Marshall and Eric Schmidt, hopes to be a surgeon someday.

But she isn’t beholden to medicine. An avid reader, she’s also an avid writer.

She just finished the Eragon Series and also enjoys books by science writer Bill Bryson. She enjoys writing young adult science fiction and is working on a book of her own. She was also the intern for the native plant nursery at the high school for two years.

If that’s not enough, she enjoys painting and sewing and fly fishing with her partner, Easton Sempf.

They just got a new puppy — a gift from a fella they met on a fishing trip.

Sempf will move with her to New Hampshire with the puppy this fall.

Schmidt said she was heavily influenced by two high school teachers. Teacher Jake Hall got her interested in science and math and English teacher Nia Vestal in writing.

“They’ve really helped me out and they’ve been good friends, too,” she said.