‘One of a kind’: Desire to help others drives Mt. Vernon senior to overcome challenges

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Mt. Vernon High School senior Victoria Rennier, who works at a pet store in Indianapolis, wants to become a nurse. Her own challenges, she says, have inspired her to want to help others. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)

HANCOCK COUNTY — Victoria Rennier was diagnosed with leukemia at age 3. Not long after that, she had a stroke that left her paralyzed on her right side.

Through rehabilitation and physical therapy, she overcame her paralysis, but lost her vision on her right side.

The experience affected her ability to learn ever since. But, driven by a desire to help others and assisted by dedicated teachers, the 18-year-old Greenfield resident is graduating from Mt. Vernon High School.

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Rennier spent 2½ years fighting her leukemia with chemotherapy and radiation treatments, finishing shortly before starting kindergarten.

The stroke’s impact on her ability to learn prompted her to take part in an individual education plan throughout school, which she said her teachers were very helpful with.

“Any time I was confused about something, they would find a different way to better explain it to me, to where I understood better,” Rennier said. “Anytime I had trouble with anything, they were willing to help me through whatever those challenges were.”

Her individual education plan helped her set goals and ask for help when she didn’t understand something, she continued.

“It’s made me a lot more social than I was, for sure,” she said.

DuWain Boss, a resource teacher at Mt. Vernon High School, helped Rennier with her individual education plan throughout her time in high school.

Boss he works with students to identify areas of need and develop goals based on those areas to improve their academic skills.

“She is just an amazing kid,” Boss said of Rennier. “Anytime that I would establish a goal for her, she’d just work so hard and she’d accomplish those goals. She’s very self-motivated. I really didn’t have to do a whole lot to help her out because she just worked so hard.”

He added that it’s not uncommon for students with special needs to find it difficult to not just work hard, but consistently work hard.

“Some students, they work hard at the beginning and then it just wears them out, because learning is such a struggle,” he said.

That wasn’t the case for Rennier, however.

“She just consistently worked hard and she dug in and she earned everything that she got,” he said.

Boss also praised Rennier’s efforts as a peer tutor, through which she worked with students with cognitive disabilities working on life skills. Rennier would go to classes with them and help them out at lunch, he said.

“She just always had such a compassionate and tender heart for those students,” Boss said.

Rennier said she helped students through peer tutoring similarly to how Mt. Vernon teachers helped her.

“If they didn’t understand something, an assignment, I would try to elaborate to where they could understand better,” she said.

Looking at what Rennier has overcome and accomplished, Boss said he’s left with a sense of awe at her determination.

“She’s one of a kind, she really is,” he said. “…It was really a joy and a pleasure to have her on my roster.”

Rennier was also involved in Family, Career and Community Leaders of America in high school. She participated in activities like volunteering at Hope House’s thrift store in Greenfield, planning events at Mt. Vernon Middle School like parties and fundraisers and handing out Valentine’s Day cards to residents at a nursing home.

“They really enjoyed getting the cards and they loved getting the visitors,” she said of the nursing home residents.

Because it occurred when she was so young, she doesn’t remember a lot from the time following her leukemia diagnosis or stroke, but she thinks the experience helped instill a desire to help others. Along with peer tutoring, she’s also supportive of family members when they’re not feeling well. She credits that desire to help others as the source of her resolve.

“I feel excited and nervous at the same time,” she said of overcoming all of her obstacles and graduating.

Rennier has applied to Ivy Tech Community College, where she plans to take nursing classes. After that, she hopes to finish her nursing studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

“Ever since I was little, I wanted to become a nurse, and I feel like that experience has been a part of me wanting to be a nurse,” she said. “I feel like I want to try to help people through that or through any other challenges they have, and I want to try to help them get through their challenges as best as I can.”

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This is the third in a series of stories about members of the Class of 2020 in Hancock County as they prepare for commencement exercises this weekend.

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Three of the county’s four high schools will have graduation ceremonies this weekend. All will be outdoors in the schools’ stadiums.

Mt. Vernon High School: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 10.

Greenfield-Central High School: 9 a.m. Saturday, July 11.

New Palestine High School: 10 a.m. Saturday, July 11.

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