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Model Citizen

08/27/2008 - By by Teja Anderson

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16 year-old Kristina Gaudio – a leader in the making

Kristina Gaudio likes to work and live “outside the box.” That’s why, 3 years ago, she applied to and was accepted by the Marine Academy of Science and Technology of Sandy Hook (M.A.S.T.), and is now entering her senior year. M.A.S.T. is a coed 4-year high school, grades 9 through 12, and is one of five career academies administered by the Monmouth County Vocational School District.
 
In 1998, the Marine Academy was designated a Blue Ribbon School, as well as a New American High School, by the United States Department of Education. The school’s advanced and demanding curriculum focuses on marine sciences and marine technology/engineering, and Kristina has made the Honor Roll there every year. M.A.S.T.’s program requires each student to participate in the Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) in lieu of taking physical education. The youngest of three girls, Kristina, who prefers to be called Kristi, credits the strong support of her parents, Laurel and Richard, as well as her immersion into the Girl Scouts of America program of which she has been a proud member for 13 years. They have been the most influential in encouraging her to help others and set high goals and standards for herself. Kristi has just received the Girl Scouts’ highest honor – the Gold Award – obtained by only a small percentage of girls her age. Kristi has volunteered her to time and energies to many causes: the Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort, American Cancer Society, Jersey Shore Medical Center, her Church, and, most notably, The Fisher House Foundation. An active member of the Key Club and the Creative Arts Club, Kristi also finds the time to play the flute in both the marching band at M.A.S.T. and in her hometown high school in Ocean Township. Kristi, a self described “dork,” enjoyed her summer off by going to the beach and hanging out with her friends, but she took a little time off to sit down with Living In – The Jersey Shore to share her story.
 
 
LIJS: Have you and your family lived at the Jersey Shore your whole life?
 
KG: Yes…me and my parents and my sisters, Amiee (19) and Jenna (21).
 
 
LIJS: So at 16 you are the baby.
 
KG: I am the baby, not of just my family, but of my whole entire extended Italian family. It’s good sometimes, except that I get to do everything last, which is not always great. In intermediate school it was always, “Oh, you’re Amiee’s sister” or “Oh, you’re Jenna’s sister…” But I was the first to not go to Ocean Township High School. I was the first one to go to M.A.S.T., which is a vocational school.
 
 
LIJS:  So, you are going into your senior year. Are you excited?
 
KG: Yes and no. No because my senior project is going to be a lot of work. Since I go to a science-and-engineering-based school and I am in the engineering part, we all have a design project that we have to do. My project is to expand and redesign the Ocean Township weight room. It’s going to be interesting…it’s small and old now.
 
 
LIJS: Will your design actually be used?
 
KG: No. I just
have to do a model of it. They don’t really have the funds. The way I am doing it, money doesn’t matter. I have to say how much it would cost, and research the building materials and expenses, but the budget is unlimited.
 
 
LIJS: Does someone oversee the project?
 
KG: Yes. I have a mentor, Robert Iamello. He is an architect who lives in Ocean Township, and his firm is the one that actually built the addition of the weight room in the 70’s.
 
 
LIJS: How many kids are in this program?
 
KG: Well, there are 68 seniors in the class, and about half go to systems engineering and half go to oceanography. Everybody has to get this project done, and it’s time consuming…you have to plan for it. It can be stressful because a lot of people wait until the last minute.
 
 
LIJS: Are you a procrastinator?
 
KG: I’m not usually, but I can be because I am a teenager. At M.A.S.T. we call ourselves the “professional procrastinators” because we have competitions to see who can stay up the latest to finish their project. But I usually do have a lot of discipline, which I got from my dad. He was in the Army.
 
 
.LIJS: What characteristics did you get from your mom?
 
KG: My creativity and my artistic abilities. My mom is an artist and I paint, too.
 
 
LIJS: You are Vice President of the Creative Arts Club?
 
KG: Yes. Last year we did Beauty and The Beast; I was the “Wardrobe.” But this year I am going to direct. I haven’t decided on the play yet…possibly Annie. It’s my favorite. It’s hard because we have a mostly girl cast; we only had three guys in the play last year. In other schools they have thousands of kids to choose from, but we only have about 200 kids in the whole school, and a lot of the boys…well, they all do other stuff, like sports.
 
 
LIJS: Where is M.A.S.T.?
 
KG: It’s in Sandy Hook. It’s almost an hour bus ride to school each way. But because it’s in Sandy Hook we have a lot of our classes outside, which is great.
 
 
LIJS: There’s a bunch of poison ivy out there, so look out!
 
KG: Yes, we learned how to identify that right away, and beach plums – they’re delicious! We had to do a 60-page paper [in] our freshman year that was a survival guide. We split into groups of five people, and we had to write about how we would be able to survive on Sandy Hook for a whole week with just the stuff in our book bag. We had to know how to read a compass and how to navigate. I had to dissect a shark and a jellyfish…and even a squid! I know how to take ink out of a squid and use it to write with. That was cool; it actually worked like a pen.
 
 
LIJS: Wow! Where would you find fresh water?
 
KG: There is a pond in Sandy Hook, but you would have to boil the water. So we had to know how to make a fire with two sticks.
 
 
LIJS: You can do that? That’s impressive!
 
KG: Yes, I can. We had to do that in Girl Scouts, too. I can make pancakes in the bottom of a coffee can…[also] learned all about fish and edible plant life.
 
 
LIJS: What did your friends think when you decided to go to M.A.S.T. and not continue on with them?
 
KG: Well, I guess I lost a couple friends. They thought I was kind of crazy to leave them and the whole social scene. But I stay in touch by texting and e-mails.
 
 
LIJS: Do they allow cell phones in school?
 
KG: In Ocean everyone is always telling me about texting in their lap; but at M.A.S.T. if they see you with a phone, then you don’t have a phone any more.
 
 
LIJS: So all of the students are also in the ROTC. How is that different from a regular high school?
 
KG: Well, on Thursdays and Fridays we wear a uniform.
 
 
LIJS: Do you have a favorite teacher?
 
KG: Yes. Miss Johns is my favorite teacher. She was my English teacher last year, and I have her again this year. She is the coolest teacher. She is really easy to talk to, and you can talk to her and joke around.
 
 
LIJS: Tell us about your involvement in the Girl Scouts. You started out as a Brownie?
 
KG: As a Daisy actually…in kindergarten. My mom was a troop leader for all of us; [for] my sisters too. My mom was the best. She was crazy. I remember having a Halloween party here, and she had us doing these witch races – these obstacle courses while riding on a broom. Then she had these powdered doughnuts on strings and we had to eat them with our hands behind our backs; then we played these mummy wrapping games with toilet paper…
 
 
LIJS: Sounds like being a Girl Scout is a lot of fun…
 
KG: Well, until about 5th grade. When I got to my Silver award it got to be more work, but still fun. But that’s when a lot of my friends started to drop out. That, and they had other things to do like dance and soccer. Right now there are only two of us left in my troop. You have to do a lot more work to get your badges; I have earned 18 of them now, and each one takes a little more time and effort.
 
 
LIJS: For your Gold Award, which you just completed this past May, what were the requirements for that?
 
KG: You have to identify a need in the community and make it into a project by setting a goal for yourself. You are required to put in a minimum of 40 hours work on the project and submit all of your work, including a timeline, log, photos, letters from community leaders, and the results and outcome of the project.
 
 
LIJS: Your mission was to raise money for the Fisher House Foundation?
 
KG: Yes. I collected art for an art auction that was part of last year’s “Support Our Heroes Military Ball,” hosted by the Fort Monmouth Chapter of the Association of the United States Army to benefit the Fisher House Foundation.
 
 
LIJS: Isn’t that sort of like the Ronald MacDonald House, but for the military?
 
KG: Yes. Fisher Houses are places where families of military personal can stay while their loved ones are being treated at military hospitals. They have them all over the world. 
 
 
LIJS: Did you raise a lot of money?
 
KG: The whole event raised over $150,000. The art auction raised over $3,000. We called it the “Art of Freedom” auction.
 
 
LIJS: How did you collect the art?
 
KG: It was actually fun. I went to a lot of art exhibits and galleries, and I talked to the artists and told them what I was doing. I also went to a lot of art shows and auctions, like at Christian Brother’s Academy. My grandmother gave me this huge original needlepoint [she did] of a foxhunt. Some people gave me the art right off of their walls. My mom donated some of her stuff, and I gave a pastel sketch I did of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse. I am proud to say that my grandmother’s piece brought in the most money.
 
 
LIJS: So what’s next? Where are you setting your sights for college?
 
KG: West Point. My dad went there (class of ’74). I am also applying to a bunch of other colleges. I am hoping to get an ROTC scholarship. Even if I don’t get into West Point, being in the ROTC is going to help me get into a good college; really, I think it will help me with a lot of other things in life.
 
 
LIJS: Such as?
 
KG: In ROTC, aside from actual naval history and stuff, they teach you a lot of life lessons. The instructors are like wise men; they have the greatest life lessons to teach us. Half the time we finish class early and we just talk about life.
 
 
LIJS: What are some of the life’s lessons you have learned?
 
KG: Well, the First Sergeant – he is the one in charge of the cadets – he said to me on the first day of classes that “M.A.S.T. is going to teach you how to fail.”
 
 
LIJS: How to fail…that’s interesting. Have you learned how?
 
KG: Yes. It’s an experience kind of thing. If you do something wrong, like you fail at something, then you go back and you learn what you did wrong; you learn how you can do it right, and then you do it right…you do it the right way. If you keep failing you keep doing it until its right.
 
 
LIJS: What did you fail at?
 
KG: Basically, freshman year, you don’t know anything. Like with my uniform…we have to stand inspection, and no one gets 100. If you get 100 then that means that your uniform is better than his uniform and you should be doing the inspection. But if something was wrong with your uniform, then you ask what was wrong and you get it right and go back. Ironing, washing, dressing, polishing my shoes…well, spit-shining my shoes. I do it all myself.
 
 
LIJS: You had an ironing class?
 
KG: Yes, we had an ironing class. We took a test on how to tie a tie. Both the girls and guys had to know how to tie a tie. We had a week’s worth of lessons on how to shine our shoes. They showed us how to put our pins on, how to iron. He kept a brick up on the edge of the board and he told us that in the Marine Corps that’s what they use to iron with. He may have been kidding. I don’t know.
 
 
LIJS: It sounds very strict.
 
KG: Well, I don’t think I have ever heard any of the instructors yell, which is surprising. Yelling seems to be the stereotype of what you think the military would be, but I haven’t seen that at all. It’s what people think the military is like, commanders yelling at their soldiers.
 
 
LIJS: Would you be able to go to war if you had to?
 
KG: If that’s what I needed to do, then that’s what I would do.
 
 
LIJS: Does that scare you at all?
 
KG: Yeah, yeah, it does.
 
 
LIJS: Do you see yourself as a leader?
 
KG: Well, a leader in training. I mean, I have to be a leader in order to be the bandmaster!
 
 
LIJS: That’s true. This is your second year as bandmaster, but how many years have you been playing the flute?
 
KG: Since the fifth grade.
 
 
LIJS: What is your favorite musical piece to play on the flute?
 
KG: Well, I’ve got the “Star Spangler Banner” memorized (laughs)! But I think “Louie Louie” is probably my favorite bandstand song, for Ocean. It’s like the band song. Last summer we all just started playing it, and the band director thought we were crazy. But at M.A.S.T. we play the “Star Spangled Banner” and the “Armed Forces Salute” every Friday. We have to have all our music memorized at M.A.S.T. because we don’t have music stands or anything…we have a very low budget.
 
 
LIJS: They don’t have a budget for the band?
 
KG: The band, up until this point, has been very small and unimportant. The band didn’t exist until the year before I got there. Now it’s built up a bit, but we only have about 10 or 15 people. At Ocean we have over 100!
 
 
LIJS: Tell us about the water drive that you did for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
 
KG: I was just going into my sophomore year and they were doing a water drive, down in Sea Girt, for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. But the gas was really expensive then, kind of like now. I was afraid that a lot of people wouldn’t drive all the way down there, so I decided that I would just do it here. I actually got Foodtown® to donate a bunch of cases of water, and I put up signs and made fliers and I made a speech from the pulpit at my church (Presbyterian Church on the Hill in Ocean). It was great. People would just come by and drop the water on the lawn. I ended up collecting so much water – like at least 200 cases that the National Guard had to come and pick up in a big truck. They gave me a certificate.
 
 
LIJS: You have mentioned that you are a “dork” or that your friends call you one. Why is that?
 
KG: I guess because I have to do my homework all the time…I need to do it. I mean I have to get it done. I’m not one of those party girls who goes out every night. I’d rather hang out at one of my friends’ houses and watch movies. We tell dumb jokes and laugh a lot. I hang out with the same kids I’ve been friends with since fifth grade. And, I’m not really the average girl – you know the whole Abercrombie thing…skinny. Everyone is always talking about all the reality TV shows like “The O.C.” and “American Idol,” but I really don’t have time to watch them. I guess that’s dorky. I would rather read a book or go to the beach.
 
 
LIJS: What are some of your favorite memories of growing up so close to the beach?
 
KG: When we were little I remember going to Avon with my parents, and bringing lunches and everything…playing in the sand, building sandcastles and digging holes, jumping waves with my sisters. Now I go with my friends on our bikes and lay out for a little while at Loch Arbor; it’s really small and great; it’s all locals. I’m not driving yet.
 
 
LIJS: But you have your boating license?
 
KG: Yes, I got my boating license last year.
 
 
LIJS: So what do you like most about living at the Jersey Shore?
 
KG: The beach! Absolutely the beach…the beach is my life. I found this great quote. I don’t know who wrote it, but this is it: “At the beach life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour, but mood to moment. We live in the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun.” I love that quote. I mean, there really isn’t any place better than the beach!  

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