NATCHEZ — The studious Trinity Episcopal Day School valedictorian Sarah Elizabeth Bryan will spend all summer researching for her future career byway of a babysitting gig.

Bryan does not plan to blend her love of children with a career involving game playing, bedtime enforcement or serving dinners of cut-up hot dogs and ketchup, but instead by making kids feel all better.

Bryan wants to be a pediatrician, a dream she said she has had for a long time.

“(Bryan has known) ever since I was little and my mom was a nurse; I used to play with her equipment,” she said.

Bryan spent her high school days juggling between academics, basketball, cheerleading, track and softball.

“I never watched TV,” Bryan said.

Hopefully, the priority-setting skills and study support systems she picked up from her time at Trinity will help her survive medical school, she said.

Bryan will attend Mississippi College in Clinton in the fall, where she hopes to study pre-medicine, and hopes to attend University of Mississippi Medical Center

Making her schedule work and still having time to ace her schoolwork was a challenge, Bryan said, but it was a learning experience.

“It’s wasn’t easy; there were long nights. But my mom and dad helped me” she said.

Bryan, who always prefer being around people, said her parents did not help her study at night by lending her study tips. All they had to do to help her was keep her company and talk with her.

“There were times when I was ready to quit and collapse, and they would sit and stay up with me so I wouldn’t be alone,” she said.

Beyond college and medical school, Bryan has plans that reach beyond the state of Mississippi.

“I want to (participate) in Doctors Without Borders and go to other countries and help,” she said.

Bryan said it’s the simplicity of children that makes them so fun to be around.

“(Children) are not complicated; they tell you how it is,” she said.

“Nothing has clouded their (world) vision — I love that.”

Bryan said maybe after a long time away and exiting life helping children around the globe, she might like settling back down in her hometown and treating future generations of Natchezians.

“I could see myself coming back, later — after I did everything I wanted to do, just because its home.”

Sarah Elizabeth Bryan is the daughter of Tom and Terre Bryan.