Emma Wylie is the valedictorian for Lake Placid High School’s class of 2025. She is planning on attending Wheaton College in the fall. (Provided photo — Sandy Huber)

LAKE PLACID — Emma Wylie is this year’s valedictorian at Lake Placid High School, and Parker Scanio earned the distinction of salutatorian. Both accomplished thespians, they recently reflected on life on and off stage and the high school accomplishments they are most proud of.

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Emma Wylie

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Asked what her favorite or most memorable stage role has been, Wylie said she loved playing Cinderella in this year’s spring musical and she also loved playing Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.” However, another roles stands out because of what she learned from it. She played Mrs. Roeder in the play “Radium Girls,” in which the character finds out that her husband is complicit in a gross injustice.

Parker Scanio is this year’s salutatorian for the Lake Placid High School class of 2025. He will attend the Catholic University of America in the fall. (Provided photo — Lisa Keegan)

“I tend to be very presentational on stage, so I sort of step into the character and I present it to the audience,” Wylie said. “But that role challenged me to be a person on stage.”

She is grateful for the diverse experience she has been given through theater, working with a lot of different people and directors.

“I’ve spent a lot of hours and years working on that craft,” she said. “You learn a lot on stage about yourself.”

Theater is only one of many talents that Wylie has developed. This year, she was the president of the National Honor Society and the Drama Club, while also competing in flag football and volleyball and working part-time at The Bookstore Plus. In fact, her diverse interests have sometimes presented a challenge. She remembers talking with her mom partway through high school, and her mom told her “you can do almost anything, but you can’t do everything.”

“That was something I definitely had to learn through high school,” Wylie said. “I am an overachiever, and I want to just do everything under the sun and be everything for everyone, but I really couldn’t.”

Wylie’s family moved to Lake Placid from Charlotte, North Carolina, when she was in grade 8. It was a bit of a culture shock, in many ways, but she found unexpected blessings in the smaller, more intergenerational community. In particular, she found both community and service opportunities through her church, Lake Placid Baptist Church.

When they first arrived in Lake Placid, Wylie and her sister started to sing at church. That service opened doors to relationships with people of all ages in her church, people she wouldn’t have necessarily had the chance to interact with normally.

“I just love it, because you grow in a lot of those conversations, because you see the progression of life,” she said. “So I love singing there, because it really brought me into that community.

Some of Wylie’s proudest accomplishments involve teaching and mentoring younger students. She started the Lake Placid Elementary Earth Day Celebration with the goal of introducing younger students to a variety of science topics with fun, hands-on learning. This effort will be passed down to another student, a current junior, to lead next year.

For her senior capstone project, Wylie began a Wyldlife club at the middle/high school. This program is an offshoot of the YoungLife ministry, which tries to meet students where they are as they grapple with big questions about life and faith, Wylie said.

“What I love about Wyldlife is they focus on the kids experiences, rather than telling them all these things that you have to do,” she said. “They’re really listening to the kids first and then trying to speak wisdom into that.”

Next year, Wylie will be attending Wheaton College, in the greater Chicago area. She plans to study international relations and French. She isn’t sure what she wants to do beyond that, but she knows she wants to do something to address issues like political polarization and conflict.

Wylie’s parents are Paul and Kate Wylie of Lake Placid. The rest of her family includes sister Hannah, brother Caleb and their dog Brady.

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Parker Scanio

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Scanio has been on stage for much of his life. When he was 5 years old, he was in a group of kids recruited to sing in a children’s choir for a production of “Evita,” a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. He’s been in just about every production available to him since then, including through the LPCA children’s theater program Rising Star Productions, Pendragon Theatre and the school’s productions.

His long-time love of theater culminated in a camp that he participated in last summer, Stagedoor Manor in Loch Sheldrake.

“If I wasn’t in love with it at that point, I wouldn’t be where I am right now,” he said. “That really solidified it and it made me more comfortable with a fast-paced theater experience.”

For his senior project, Scanio directed a children’s musical version of “Pinocchio,” performed by Lake Placid Elementary School students. To read more about this project, visit tinyurl.com/2s45zd3k.

It’s hard to choose a favorite show or production, but Scanio said this past year has included some fun and interesting new learning experiences. He was in a production of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee this past year with the Depot Theatre, a show that was more “ensemble-style show” where almost everyone is on the stage the whole time. He got to play a contestant in the spelling bee, and also made an appearance as Jesus.

“Every other show I’ve been in, the roles that I’ve had have not been more ensemble style-roles,” he said. “I haven’t been able to play multiple characters, so definitely finding a difference between those was a lot of fun to do, and taught me a lot.”

Although theater has been a large part of his school years, it is far from the only thing he’s involved with. At LPCS this past year, he was the president of the Blue Bomber Weekly News, the Drama Club treasurer, and a member of the National Honor Society. He also competes in Nordic skiing and plays on the varsity tennis team, where he said he’s seen some good results from the past year.

“This year I felt like I really pushed myself to become a better skier, and why not go out with a bang my senior year,” he said.

Scanio said his other proudest accomplishment has been his journey through Boy Scouts. He has recently completed his Eagle Scout project, and has been working on finishing his write-up.

“Being so close to becoming an Eagle Scout is definitely one of my proudest accomplishments throughout my high school career,” he said.

Scanio plans to attend the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C., to study music theater. This application process was extensive, requiring him to learn a few songs, monologues — and learn how to dance. Dance, especially tap dancing, plays a huge role in music theater.

“Some people will ask me, ‘Why not just audition in the city?'” he said. “And what I say to them is just, ‘I need more training.'”

Having lived in Lake Placid his whole life, Scanio is excited to experience the change of pace and scenery in the nation’s capital. He hopes to work towards acting on Broadway or in a national touring group, and this program will give him the diverse skillset needed in those types of productions.

Scanio is the son of Mark and Kristen Scanio of Lake Placid. His family includes brothers Andrew and Will and dogs Cocoa and Quincy.