Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of four Bright Future articles highlighting local STAR students. STAR is an acronym for Student Teacher Achievement Recognition, a Mississippi title given to the student who excels academically in the classroom and earns the highest ACT score at his or her high school. The next article will highlight the Trinity Episcopal Day School STAR student and will be published in next Thursday’s edition.

NATCHEZ — For Cathedral senior Mary Kathryn Carpenter, a midnight dream became morning reality.

Carpenter, 18, didn’t really believe it earlier this school year when her mother interrupted the teen’s slumber screaming something about a 30 on the college preparatory test, the ACT.

Scoring 30 — out of a potential 36 — was dream enough for Carpenter. It meant a significant amount of scholarship money to attend the University of Alabama in the fall — and a new car, per an arrangement with her parents.

“I woke up in the morning and asked my mom if I was dreaming when she came into my room and told me about getting a 30,” she said. “My mom said, ‘No,’ that she woke me up the night before when the scores were posted and told me.

“I thought it was all a dream.”

Her ACT score also earned Carpenter the title of STAR student at her school.

The Student Teacher Achievement Recognition program honors one student per high school based on ACT score and academic achievement in the classroom. Carpenter joins more than 250 students from around the state who have earned the title this year.

The award is sponsored by the Mississippi Economic Council.

The high ACT score didn’t come easily, Carpenter said.

“That score came on try seven or eight,” she said, laughing. “I studied through several of the big ACT books, took a two-hour ACT class online three nights a week and went to several workshops.

“It took a while, but I got the score I wanted.”

As STAR student, Carpenter chose one teacher who had the greatest impact on her educational career as STAR teacher.

Her STAR teacher is Cathedral biology teacher Denise Thibodeaux. Thibodeaux has been teaching for 19 years and was named STAR teacher in 2011.

Carpenter said she has always considered herself an “arts and crafts kid” — drawn to English and arts classes — but she said Thibodeaux’s science classes were some of her favorites during her time at Cathedral.

“I found her teaching methods easy to follow, and she always takes the time to help you if you don’t understand something,” Carpenter said. “Her daughter and I are best friends, too, so she has been like a second mom to me.”

When Carpenter is not dissecting a cow fetus for her anatomy class or cutting DNA samples with restriction enzymes for her biomedical research class, she enjoys landscape and portrait photography.

The hobby is one Carpenter said she hopes to turn into a career when she begins studying journalism in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama in the fall.

“My dream job is to be a photographer for National Geographic because they get to take all the awesome nature photos,” Carpenter said. “For a little while, I just wanted to live in a specific place and do whatever job I could find to live there.

“I’ve gotten a little more realistic with that though and realized that’s probably not the best thing to do.”

Carpenter is the president of the National Honor Society, a member of the Key Club and secretary of the Jefferson Street United Methodist youth group.

She is the daughter of Todd and Emily Carpenter.