Entering high school after the pandemic, Philomath senior Janice Hellesto said she felt a lack of motivation for education. Online school during the eighth grade had been difficult and it was a challenge to stay focused on academics.
Four months into her junior year, things got worse when her dad suffered a serious health issue. The challenges that followed transformed her approach to learning and clarified career goals.
GRADUATION COVERAGE Wednesday: Graduate profile on Janice Hellesto, who broke through challenges to excel in the classroom and find a path for her future
Thursday: A Q-and-A with this year’s 10 valedictorians plus a listing of all 115 candidates.
Friday: A graduation preview with a photo gallery of seniors going on a traditional tour of other school campuses. Plus, a rundown of students that earned scholarships and other honors.
Saturday: Coverage of the ceremony with a story and photo gallery.
“Starting this year, I just, I don’t know, it was like some switch in me that was like, ‘Oh, you’re really graduating and you have a year to work on yourself until you’re no longer with these people … and you’re out in the real world,’” Janice said during an interview last week. “So this year, I’ve just had a 4.0 the whole year compared to some other years when I wasn’t doing as well. So, it’s kind of my redemption year.”
Janice will be among 115 students receiving diplomas Saturday at Philomath High School’s graduation ceremony. The event begins at 11 a.m. at Clemens Field.
Janice has difficulty trying to explain how she and school started to click.
“It just flipped in me that I was able to focus more and I felt more comfortable doing work and it didn’t feel like a burden anymore,” she said. “It just felt like something I knew I wanted to accomplish and do better in’”
The youngest of eight children of Witherly and Brad Hellesto, Janice was born at the family home in Philomath and went through all 13 grades in the local school system. The health issue with her dad occurred in December 2023.
“At the beginning of my junior year, around Christmas, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatitis and it was just really acute and severe — and just got worse,” she explained. “It led to a bunch of other things like gallstones and he was in ICU (intensive care unit) for maybe three months in Corvallis and then he switched up to Portland where my mom moved with him.”
The latter stay in Portland was at a long-term acute care facility, a specialty hospital that helps individuals work through complex medical conditions, including reconditioning muscles that hadn’t been used in a while and helping patients transition off ventilators and tracheostomies.
Janice said a friend who is a family youth pastor lived in the Hellesto home while her parents were in Portland.
“It was pretty odd to go from my house that once had all of my siblings and all of my family to not even having my parents living in it,” she said.
Janice said her dad has done well with recovery and has been working since August. He did have a major surgery, she added, at the beginning of this spring.
“I think when everything happened with my dad, it was kind of a wake-up call to be like, ‘I’m not always going to have someone with me to kind of lead me through everything’ so that really forced me to grow up and start doing things on my own,” she said.
Religion has played a meaningful role in Janice’s childhood journey. The mother of a classmate and good friend impacted that part of her life — from the Tuesday tea parties that started occurring every week when Janice was around age 5 to that activity’s evolution into a Bible Study group that involved five or six girls.
Just this past August, her friend’s mom passed away. Janice and the rest of the group wanted to continue meeting.
“We had always been led or preached to and when something so personal like that happens, we had to really look in and be like, ‘Oh, how are we going to overcome and continue our faith and stay close together?” she said. “So a lot of us stepped up — it was only five of us girls but just making sure there were always snacks or tea … or finding curriculum or always texting … trying to find days when all of us could be together.”
The group met for the last time before graduation on Tuesday of last week.
In the classroom, Janice said she took all of the school’s health classes this year with Donna Carter.
“Before this year, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but once I got in anatomy with Ms. Carter and just started taking health occ (occupations), it was really fun and I really enjoyed it,” she said. “And it really made me feel connected with my dad because now I understood what he went through and what the nurses and doctors went through to help him — it made me understand his illness more.”
Janice plans to attend George Fox University in Newberg.
“I’m going to study nursing,” she said. “I’d like to do either labor and delivery, I think that would be so cool, or like post-birth care. I just love babies.”
Working in a hospital’s intensive care unit also has her interest.
“It’s a lot more intimate and you see a lot of families really at their worst and I think I’d like to do something almost a little more personable,” she said. “I think I can be pretty outgoing and I want to be somewhere where I can not only just take care of people but be a listening ear. That’s important.”
Athletics have played a big role in Janice’s high school experience and she’s been among the most successful to ever wear Philomath’s colors. Over her four years with the track and field team, she won seven first-place medals in the sprints, relays and the long jump and helped the Warriors to four straight team titles.
Janice will compete in college with the Bruins.
