On the other hand, people sometimes get too serious. "I have a problem with things suffering," Pemble said. Pemble takes it seriously now, the shooting of a pheasant or the hooking of a fish. They've gone camping many times since, studying how nature works. His father takes it back to that first fishing trip, when the boy was 5 years old. The passion goes so far back Pemble can hardly remember how it began. "We always say: Pick something you feel passionate about." "I think he'll be very successful," said Hillestad, a former adviser to small businesses. But the boy has a good combination going for him: strong skills, a tough work ethic, and the humility to ask for help. About half of small businesses fail within six months. He even took the classes he'd need for a four-year-college, just in case.Īll of it will come in handy later, his teacher said, when Pemble sets up that fishing-guide business. Always had a sweet, easy way of working with people on projects. Always made his points clear and convincing in class. He saw Pemble as a sharp, curious student. That was kind of a surprise to Mark Hillestad, his marketing teacher. The cramped four walls of her dormitory room - Pemble could not imagine himself inside them, for four years, poring over all those books. Pemble visited Gonzaga University a couple of times, where his sister is studying international business. Then he heads into a five-year apprenticeship, when the pay is not so good.īut it beats college. First, Pemble has to pass the trade exam, which includes plenty of trigonometry. "From a parenting point of view, it's about keeping them pointed and directed and not settling for a mediocre job," said his father, Michael. His father worries sometimes: Maybe he'll latch onto a job that pays more than plumbing, but goes nowhere in the end. Already he's talking about moving out of the house, renting his own place, maybe buying a new boat down the line. The pay is good, the work is steady - and he'll have the money he needs for his business in less than 10 years. It's what his father does, and what his grandfather did before that. So Pemble has chosen plumbing as his first career.
The first part of the plan is to make money. "I think I'm ahead of some people, maturity-wise." "I've just kinda had a plan and stuck with it," said Pemble, 18.
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This year, he did a monthslong project on becoming a professional fisherman. He's taken classes at Cedarcrest in marketing, entrepreneurship and business administration. Pemble knows what it takes to start up that business. It's a specialty kind of sport that takes plenty of patience - and you've got to know just the right pockets where those chrome fish lie low.
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One day, if all goes according to plan, Pemble will have his own fishing-guide business, showing people how to catch steelhead. "The noise of the river just calms me," Pemble said. He drives over there in his black pickup, pulls his driftboat off the trailer, grabs his fishing rod and shoves out onto the water. It's the Skykomish River, and it never lets him down. There is a place where Sam Pemble goes, when girls are confusing, teachers are demanding, and his parents will just not leave him alone. Together they represent nothing more, and nothing less, than the spirit of graduation - a hopeful time of life, when so many teenagers are ready to get their dreams done.
All will face challenges in the wider world, from finding the money for college to keeping the focus on career.Īt Cedarcrest last week, there was Sam Pemble, who wants one day to own a fishing-guide business Greer Hei, who hopes to teach kids about the science of farming and Miguel Martinez, who is set on a career as a police officer. Thousands of seniors are graduating this month, in ceremonies from Seattle to Spokane. With any luck, by graduation day, the whole thing comes together in a plan. They have swapped some dreams, scaled back others, found a passion that fits. They get thoughtful in their talk with teachers, counselors, parents.Īnd by the time senior year begins, they are more realistic. "Rock star is huge," said Debbie Gilmore, career specialist at Cedarcrest.Īs they move through high school, the kids play around with their ideas. In a small, green pocket of Duvall, a few miles from a dairy farm and past another subdivision, the counselors at Cedarcrest High School have heard it all before.Įach new class of freshmen comes to the career center, caught up in pie-in-the-sky dreams.