LACHANCE-BENOIT

LINCON — Cassie Lachance-Benoit knows why she wanted to be a nurse.

She was at the hospital with her family, listening to a doctor explain what was wrong and what they were going to do to help a hospitalized relative. But she and her family didn’t really understand what he told them.

When the doctors left the room, she said it was always the nurses who took the time.

“It was always the nurse who stayed and explained it to us,” she said. “That made us feel so much more comfortable. ... Hopefully, I can do something like that.”

After graduating as valedictorian of the Class of 2007 at the William Davies Career and Technical High School last week, Lachance-Benoit hopes to do that, by studying nursing at Rhode Island College.

She said she developed a serious academic interest in the field from the time she was in middle school at Central Falls’ Calcutt Middle School. She would read what she could find and sought out medical shows on television.

“Since I was young, I wanted to be a nurse,” she said.

“I would catch all the doctor shows on television,” she said, with her favorite being the programming on the Discovery Health Channel, which features often-graphic footage of actual operations. “People would come in the room and say, ‘WHAT are you watching!’ ” she said.

At Davies, she specialized in electrical wiring, because the nursing courses didn’t excite or challenge her. Though she said she probably won’t be using her electrical training in her working life, it was still empowering to know she’ll be able to rewire any house she winds up living in.

“When I first started, I was so scared,” she remembers, learning how to work with something that could kill her. “They warn you, it’s 120 volts, three amps — and a tenth of an amp can kill you. But you learn so much. Now I can work on panel breakers and I’m not scared.”

Janet Butler, an anatomy teacher at Davies, said Lachance-Benoit really emerged in her last two years at Davies.

“I had her as a sophomore and again this year,” Butler said. “There’s been a huge change. I think she grew up.”

Besides teaching Lachance-Benoit anatomy, Butler said she wanted to push her. She held Lachance-Benoit to a college-level standard in anatomy class, Butler said, because she wanted her student ready for what she’d see at RIC.

She would practically torment Lachance-Benoit by comparing her to another gifted student, driving her to compete.

“I told her, my job is to push you to your limit and to push you some more. She really blossomed.”

jhill@projo.com