For Sowerwine, her sights are set on the skies

Julia Sowerwine is a rare teenager. She doesn’t own a cell phone and unless she goes to the library or a coffee shop, she doesn’t have Internet access. She also avoids social media.

If you want to get a hold of her, you call her home phone and leave a message with her parents.

You know, like the old days.

She is far from depressed.

“It’s great, I love it,” the Columbia Falls High School senior said in a recent interview. “It’s old fashioned. I know.”

Sowerwine has greater aspirations in life than how many likes she has on Facebook or followers on Instagram.

She wants to study chemical engineering and she wants to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

That goal recently got a big boost when she was nominated by Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s office for not just Air Force Academy, but for Naval, Merchant Marine and Military academies as well.

She was the only candidate that Tester’s office nominated for all four academies.

Sowerwine lives in Nyack with her father Shannon and mother Lesley and younger sister, Sophia.

Her mom homeschools her sister and her father is a former Air Force meteorologist who is now on sabbatical from his private sector job.

In her youth, Sowerwine wanted to be a professional ballet dancer and was good at it — she was accepted to programs both at the Kirov School of Ballet and American School of Ballet, but then lost her passion for dancing, she said.

With support from her father, she decided to pursue a career in the military. She would love to learn to fly aircraft, she said, but admits she hasn’t been in a plane since she was an infant.

She’s been doing quite well on the ground. Her grade point average is 4.07 and this year she’s taking advanced placement courses in physics and politics, to name a few.

She said her goal of studying chemistry at the Academy started in high school.

“I loved AP chemistry,” she said. “I couldn’t get enough of it.”

When Sowerwine isn’t studying or preparing for the Academy she said she loves to fish. With the Middle Fork of the Flathead out her backdoor, it’s not hard to see why.

“Fishing is my No. 1 hobby,” she said.

Sowerwine will hear back from the Air Force in March, she said, on whether she’s been accepted.

This story has been corrected to reflect the proper city of the Air Force Academy.