This PAHS is Armed and Fabulous

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the Phoenixville Area High School Purple Press. It is one in a series of profiles of PAHS Class of 2013 Students posted on Patch by special arrangement with PAHS and the Purple Press student newspaper.

By Erin Boring

Many students set out to discover who they are in high school. Ashley Spina is a unique senior who forged her her own path, and marches to the beat of her own drum.

Many people find their place in high school through the activities they participate in. For Ashley that was color guard. Color guard is a sport that involves dancing and spinning (not twirling!) flags, sabers and rifles to music in a show.  Ashley Spina started performing color guard in her sophomore year of high school. She fell in love with the sport and continued to do it through her high school career. One of her favorite color guard shows was Conformity, the 2012 indoor season show, where performers spun in dark clothing at the start of it. By the end they all shed the dark clothing to reveal colorful outfits that represented the individual dancers.

Ashley's other calling is theatre. She has been a member of the Theatre Guild here at PAHS since her brother Joe convinced her to go her freshman year. Out of all the plays she has been in, her favorites are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Romeo and Juliet. She enjoyed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern not only for its hilarity, but because it has an interesting and philosophical plot.  

Her favorite role was playing the Nurse in this year’s fall production of Romeo and Juliet. Ashley did an amazing job, considering she only had about a week and a half to prepare for the role, when she took over for her classmate, Sadie Behrman, after her accident.  

Ashley’s performance in the play won her “ (which are like the Oscars or Tony Awards) she was not on hand to accept the award because she was in Wildwood for the East Coast Competition for color guard. The Phoenixville guard placed 18th out of 30, which is a huge accomplishment considering it was the guard’s first year competing in that class.

Besides her theater accomplishments, Ashley is also president of the Purple Perk in the PAHS library, a position she took when the librarians handed the responsibility to students. “It’s great and the librarians love me and I love them!” Ashley said. She is also an employee at the Apex Credit Union in the school and a teacher’s aide for Ms. Speckhals.

When Ashley graduates she plans on attending community college for a year, then plans on transferring to Albright to study social psychology. She also plans on joining their theater group, “The Domino Players.”

We were very lucky to have a unique and interesting person at PAHS. Ashley Spina will do much in the future as she continues down her path, still marching to her own beat. Ashley’s wise advice is, “Even if being yourself means losing friends, you have to know you will always find people that like you for who you are.”

Read more about the 2013 Cappies Awards Here on Phoenixville Patch

• Phoenixville's Night at the Cappies
• Cappies Celebrate Outstanding Student Actors
• Phoenixville Students Nominated for Cappies