Bob Stuart, program director for the nonprofit Maine College Circle, speaks Wednesday to seven Dirigo Elementary School fourth-graders who were each presented $100 scholarships at a meeting at Regional 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico. Haleigh Hutchins, center, was among those chosen for their essays on their aspirations for the future. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

MEXICO — It’s never too early to dream about what you aspire to be.

For three months this year, 40 fourth-graders at Dirigo Elementary School in Peru had the opportunity to do that.

Teacher Holmquist said students first learned about essay writing, then from February through April watched Zoom aspirations workshop sessions with Bob Stuart, program director for the nonprofit Maine College Circle. The organization teaches students to understand the value of continued education beyond high school and helps them explore their opportunities.

She said they researched colleges, universities, trade schools and other institutions of higher learning and wrote essays. A panel of judges chose the top seven to received $100 Maine College Circle scholarships for higher education.

On Wednesday, they were recognized at the Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico.

Sawyer Lufkin said even before the program on the value of higher education, he’d been considering his future.

“I want to be a forestry worker, just like my dad,” he said, “I want to run my dad’s company,” Lufkin Logging Inc. For his research, Lufkin said his father “let me run a forwarder that stacked logs on the log bed.”

Haleigh Hutchins said she hadn’t really thought about her future before being introduced to the program. She’s decided she wants to be an artist and learn about the various ways she could use her talent.

“I thought a lot about that,” she said. “I just want to do art in general.”

Recipient Lily Korhonen said she likes to help people, which is a big reason she wants to become a doctor.

Michael Richards’ favorite sounds are click, snap and tick. He loves Legos and hopes to become a mechanical engineer for Lego.

Angelito Tuell said he is determined to protect others and to make sure they get the support they need, which is why he hopes to become a SWAT team member.

And Jacob Webster likes to dig for interesting rocks, which is why he is looking forward to a life as a geologist.

Max Giberson said he wants to become a videogame designer. To express his creativity he makes movies on iMovie and plans future video games.

Stuart, who has taught the program for 26 years, said because of the pandemic workshops have been done on Zoom this year.

Dirigo Elementary School fourth-graders Sawyer Lufkin, right, and Max Giberson watch Wednesday as Curtiss Hallock, educational technician at Region 9 School of Applied Technology in Mexico, uses a laser etching machine to make custom dog tags for the boys. The  boys were among seven fourth-graders presented $100 scholarships toward higher education. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

“There just isn’t much interaction at all,” he said. “But for these rural communities, distance is a big problem and students are away from opportunities and from people. In these cases, Zoom and the internet has really been a benefit.”

He said he’s had Zoom conferences with a video game designer from Seattle who grew up in Calais, a military person, a chef and the head football coach with the University of Maine.

The experience, he said, helped him to realize “I can do this anywhere. I could get somebody from the other side of the planet.”

And there is a lesson for everyone to learn from distance learning, he said.

“Education is for you,” Stuart said. “If you’re doing it to make everyone else happy, then you’re probably wasting your time. So the idea that you would just check out on learning, not get any smarter and just goofing off for the year, I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense.”

Stuart said his top priority remains to get young students to aspire to who they want to become.

“I wish kids spent more time learning for their own sake, exploring their own aspirations,” he said.

The Maine College Circle website says, “Our experience has taught us that grades 4 and 5 are the pivotal years for student aspirations in rural communities.”