Waterford High senior loves dirt bikes but opts for nursing career
May 31—Editor's note: The Day publishes an annual series of stories spotlighting outstanding seniors graduating from the region's 16 public and private high schools.
Waterford ― About two years ago, resident Rich Smith got a nervous call from friend Bill Cole, who had been out in the woods riding a dirt bike with Smith's son ― Waterford High School senior Zach Smith.
"He calls me and says, 'Zach had a little spill.' I said 'Is he all right?' "
"He said, 'He broke his collarbone,' " Rich recalled Wednesday, as he sat in the backyard of his Boston Post Road home with several of Zach's relatives.
Zach was a short distance away, trying to fix a push mower he had seen for free on the side of the road. He walked over to the table and pulled down the collar of his T-shirt, where the skin over his collarbone displayed a long, red scar.
"Aside from the broken collarbone, there haven't been too many injuries," Smith said, adding this about his parents. "So they're not too worried, at least on the dirt. They're still worried about the street."
"The way they put it is, I don't tend to get into too much trouble and I'm on a decent trajectory, so they enable me," he added.
Smith is expected to graduate from Waterford High School on June 14 with a 4.15 GPA. He credits his parents for always pushing him to do well in school, but also encouraging his numerous outdoor hobbies, including hunting, fishing and most of all maintaining and riding dirt bikes.
Smith currently owns two bikes, a Yamaha YZ 250X he rides on the dirt and a street-legal Yamaha WR250R dirt bike that he rides on the road.
With the street bike, Smith said he's is usually out in search of "twisty" roads. On Wednesday he rode the bike 60 miles to Branford after he "heard there was a good road there."
Unfortunately, it didn't meet his expectations.
"And then it's 'OK, time to find another road,' " Smith said.
Smith said while riding on the street, he enjoys the feeling of the wind, and how he can go to a destination but be outside at the same time.
It was Cole, his riding partner who is in his 70s, who introduced him to most of the trails he rides on now.
"We'd set up, like, every weekend or so usually. We'd go out ― go on the trail ― he'd lead because he has his mental map that's insane. And I'd just follow him, and watching him I'd learn the lines to take, I'd learn where to position myself for jumps. But mainly it's just watching him," he said.
Smith's father, Rich, also used to ride dirt bikes, which helped get his son into riding.
But when it comes to Smith's post-graduation plans, which is go into nursing, other family members have had a similar influence.
"My mother is a nurse ― has been for years and years, and my sister also went into nursing recently. And they would always bring fun stories to the dinner table. Fun, horrible, horrible stories. ― mostly grievous injuries, lots of bodily fluids and people who should not have survived yet somehow did," Smith said.
"You learn to eat fast," he said.
In his backyard, Smith pulled out the YZ250X, stripped of its seat and gas tank. The brakes don't work. He's hoping to fix it before summer so he and Cole can go riding.
"I'll never not worry about him when he's out on the bikes," mother Michelle Smith said.
"He's just ― he's so smart," his father added. "His grades are very savvy. He's just one of those kids that like, everything he touches turns to gold."
