After she graduates with honors from St. Vincent Pallotti High School in Laurel, Magdalena “Maggie” Johnson will head off in the fall to McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland where she will study nursing.
“I currently plan to get my BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) and become a labor and delivery nurse,” she said, adding that she would eventually like to further her education and become a nurse practitioner.
“My dream is to help bring new life into the world every time I go into work,” she said. “Ultimately, my goal is to help as many people as I can to have the happy, healthy life they deserve.”
While at the Pallottine-sponsored coed school, Johnson was part of its four-year engineering program, and an inductee in the school’s National Honors Society and English Honors Society. But while she looks to a future in medicine, she said her favorite activities at the school included the music ministry team and the theater program.
“Being a part of the music ministry team helped me to connect with my peers through music at Mass, using music to connect with our faith,” she said. “(And) the theater program has helped me to express myself in a performance setting and grow my confidence in a public setting.”
The daughter of Nicole and Corey Johnson of Laurel, Johnson and her family attend St. Mary of the Mills Parish. She also went to the parish school.
She sings in her parish’s Modern Worship Band, and that experience, she said, “has helped me grow my faith and (grow) socially within my church community... We get to experience people engaging in Mass every week and help people to grow in their faith through our music.”
At school, she participated in various service projects including working in a soup kitchen, singing at nursing homes, making cards, and volunteering at her local theater.
Attending Pallotti, she said, also helped her grow in her faith. “As a freshman, I was not very strong in my faith,” she explained. It was after attending a Kairos retreat, she said, that “I really opened myself up to faith and accepted God into my heart.”
“Being at a Catholic high school has helped me to remain strong in my faith, having little parts of the day dedicated to remind
myself of it and practice it,” she said.
As she ends her high school career and moves on to college, Johnson said she will take with her “one of the strongest lessons that I have learned – that everything happens in its own time.”
“I have realized that it is all in God’s plan,” she said. “God has a plan for us, and we just need to trust in Him. Moving forward, this will help me to get through the tough times that I may face, knowing that He is always there for me to turn to and trust in.”
