Anna Bui and Hana Wanas also contributed this article
Sharon Lee, a Malden High School alum, and former editor-in-chief of The Blue and Gold, returns to the school as a staff member.
Lee loved her time as a student here. Filling her schedule with a multitude of extracurricular activities, she believed they played a notable role in her life and helped her develop important skills. “I learned a lot in school academically, but there are also so many actual life skills I learned from being involved in extracurriculars,” expressed Lee.
As a student, Lee strived to be the best version of herself for her classmates. “Sharon was a dedicated student and a servant leader to her classmates. She was always wanting to be better and help others be better,” said Dana Brown, Malden High School’s principal during Lee’s time in high school.
Lee was also an excellent student during her time here at Malden High: “She participated in class, she always had an excellent personality, and she was very easy to approach for her classmates. She has a good sense of humor, very thorough and she worked really hard,” claimed Shannon Votaw, Lee’s former science teacher.
Originally, Lee did not envision herself as a school counselor. Lee had graduated high school believing she would participate in government and community work to make more of a significant impact. “I thought the way to make a change within the world or our country was through the government,” recalled Lee.
Over time, Lee decided that making an impact would be easier when working with a smaller community. “I knew that I always wanted to come back to Malden and eventually serve the community, and so that happens at a local level because of the significant impact that Malden High has had on me,” she stated.
The local level she wished to work at would include education. Lee believed that she was not “actually helping solve any of the issues in the world, and so I wanted to work at a more local level directly with students. Education has been really important to me, because education opens up a gateway to limitless possibilities in life.”
Lee is happy to be back in her hometown and to be giving back to the community she adores. She proclaimed that “Malden is very different in a good way” because of how “the community is so loving and kind and accepting and welcoming that…I just have really good memories. This was my home, in a sense. Coming to school felt like I was going home sometimes…I felt that everyone made everyone feel welcome when I was in high school.”
Lee is not the only one who is glad to be back; the staff members are also happy to see a familiar face. “Beyond her ability and her talent, everything else, she’s one of us. She’s one of ours,” Mastrangelo concluded.
