Education is a journey of discovery that begins with curiosity, opportunity and the guidance of mentors. Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy (Maeser Prep) offers a holistic education that can help students develop leadership skills, discover their interests and foster meaningful relationships. For Abriel Rosenvall and Sam Garrison, two alumni of Maeser Prep, this journey also led them to a lifelong partnership.
Maeser Prep has been specifically organized to set students up for optimal success. At the forefront of students’ minds are the school’s primary values: truth, honor and virtue. The awards presented at the end of the year rally are based on the three values. This signals to the students the overall sense of purpose and the “upward lift” of education through people overcoming weaknesses through hard work.
To take their learning further, students at the school also get involved in Socratic seminars, which combine history and language arts. Specifically designed to help students navigate original source literature and develop critical thinking skills, these seminars have proven to help students in a unique way. In fact, former student Abriel Rosenvall credits Socratic seminars with helping her develop a skill that became vital for her future career in nursing: “Nursing is heavy on critical thinking. This skill came naturally to me because of the Socratic method of learning.”
Another distinct and integral feature of the school is the Winterim program, designed to “enhance student learning by providing an intensive, focused educational experience.” Students select from a curated course catalog or submit their own independent study.
In her senior year, through independent study, Winterim brought Abriel Rosenvall to Colorado to shadow her uncle Val, a CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist), and assist in knee replacements. Through this experience, Abriel realized that she was intrigued by the human body, the action of the surgical nurses and the OR work environment. It was this opportunity that helped Abriel solidify her dream of being a nurse — an opportunity that would not have been possible without Maeser Prep’s unique Winterim program.
Abriel’s initial interest in the human body came from the anatomy unit in her general biology class. She credits the Maeser teachers with helping her see her potential and having high expectations for her — expectations that were not demoralizing, but motivating. “You could tell that they really cared. They expected us to be good citizens, good people. It really made a difference having that positive expectation,” she shared.
Abriel also excelled athletically. She participated in swim, track and field, volleyball, and mountain biking for Pleasant Grove High School, as Maeser Prep doesn’t have their own mountain biking team. She appreciated the comradery of attending school and playing on teams with her classmates. “Because the school is small,” she explained, “you get to know each other very well.”
As a freshman, Abriel was seated next to Sam Garrison in the Print Communications class taught by Ms. Natalie Gerber. Print Communications combines yearbook, journalism, photography and digital media. Both Abriel and Sam appreciated Ms. Gerber’s attention to their strengths and providing opportunities to grow, assigning Abriel creative work and Sam leadership and mentoring opportunities. As a senior, Sam became the editor-in-chief of the yearbook and school magazine. Ms. Gerber also celebrated each students’ successes in class by highlighting their work in front of the class. Abriel shared that knowing someone believed in her as a 14-year-old gave her confidence in the years that followed.
Sam Garrison’s education at Maeser Prep proved to be as beneficial and full of unique opportunities for him as it was for his classmate Abriel.
Sam gravitated to other leadership positions. From sophomore through senior year, he worked on the peer-nominated Hope Squad and was a peer mentor for Special Education. Sam was drawn to STEM classes and became a math tutor as well. Sam (student body vice president) and Abriel (senior class president) participated in the student council.
Athletics was also a place of meaningful connections to Sam. Sam participated in track and field and basketball, where calculus was part of the practice discussions. He said that competition came not only on the court or track, but in the classroom too. That healthy competition was motivating to him. “The jocks are also the nerds,” Sam commented, “and that’s what makes Maeser fun.”
While Sam preferred STEM classes, he appreciated the liberal arts focus at Maeser. He knew he wanted to go to college and get an advanced degree but didn’t know what course to pursue. He found that his Maeser education exposure prepared him for generals in college and gave him an appreciation of history, literature and world civilization. The focus on discussion through the Socratic method also carried over to college, and to life in general.
In college, Sam considered pursuing accounting or engineering. In the end, he decided on accounting — he realized that he preferred the human interaction that comes with business over the theoretical isolation often found in engineering. Sam’s natural organization and leadership skills developed at Maeser helped him get into the integrated Master of Accountancy program at Brigham Young University. Service oriented, Sam served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Meanwhile, Abriel accepted a scholarship at Southern Utah University to pursue nursing. After serving a Spanish-speaking mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Washington, D.C., she transferred to Utah Valley University (UVU). She worked as a medical assistant while in nursing school and as a swim coach at Maeser Prep for two years. She received her BS in nursing from UVU in August 2024.
Abriel and Sam graduated from Maeser Prep in 2018. Ms. Gerber’s decision to seat them next to each other turned out to be serendipitous. Always in touch, but apart for a time, they were married on June 24, 2021. Their wedding reception was an early high school reunion. (They’ll have to plan other reunions as student council officers!)
Abriel is a nurse for Alpine Pediatrics and volunteers as the social media manager for the Pleasant Grove mountain biking team. Sam currently works as an accounting intern at Pattern in Lehi, Utah, while pursuing his master’s degree.
“The culture carried us to grow a lot,” Sam recalls. “Maeser valued and celebrated times when people chose to be better people, or chose to value their education, serve others or lift other people.”
An educator’s goal is to help their students to be interested and engaged so that they can ultimately find their life’s work and purpose. This goes hand in hand with a parent’s goal, which is to raise children to be kind and collaborative — to ultimately be good people. As a bonus, it would be great if they could find a like-minded person to spend their life with as well. It’s safe to say that Abriel and Sam have made their teachers and families proud.
