ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080068
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
When Stephanie Love was a little girl, she would play school with her stuffed animals.
She would pretend to be a teacher and talk to her teddy bears and other animals as if they were children because she loved school so much. She was an only child and often played alone.
Stephanie's passion for education grew stronger as she became older.
She says it's the reason she hasn't missed a day of school since she began nursery school 15 years ago.
Stephanie, who graduated from Patrick Henry High in June, went to school when she had a cold and the flu. Only once was she so ill that she had to call her mother to take her home 30 minutes after school started.
She sometimes would get her father to take her to school when the school bus didn't stop at her house. Her father worked nights and would be sleeping, but Stephanie would wake him up because she didn't want to miss a day.
"Some people have asked me if my mom made me go," she said. "I say `No, I made the decision. I wanted to go every day.'''
Stephanie, 19, would get nervous each time she received her report card, but she wasn't worried about her grades.
She lived with the fear that school officials would make a mistake and say she had missed a day. The anxiety was especially bad when she went to middle school with a cousin who had the same last name because she was afraid there might be an error.
"I enjoy the teachers, the classes and meeting new people," she said. "I wanted to go very day because I enjoy school."
She especially likes math. She took algebra, geometry and trigonometry in high school.
Stephanie was the only Patrick Henry graduate this year - and one of a handful of graduating seniors in the Roanoke Valley in recent years - who had perfect attendance.
Even with her determination never to miss a day, Stephanie acknowledges she had a little luck, too.
A few years ago, she had a bad bike wreck that tore up her knee. It happened during the summer, so she didn't miss any school.
She said she's been fortunate she's never had a major illness that put her in the hospital. She had chicken pox before she started school.
Her family always took their vacations during the summer. She scheduled her doctor's appointments in the afternoons so she wouldn't have to miss school.
Stephanie hopes to keep up her record when she goes to Concord College in Athens, W.Va., this fall to study to become an elementary teacher. She has signed up for 8 o'clock classes every morning because she likes to get up early and get started with the school day.
Stephanie also has a perfect attendance record at her part-time job at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. She hasn't missed any time since she began working at the hospital's information desk two years ago. She now works in the admissions office. She's worked 20 to 25 hours a week during the school year, and 35 to 40 hours during the summer.
During last winter's snowstorms, Stephanie worked 13 consecutive hours at the hospital on one occasion because some employees couldn't get to work. She stayed at the hospital one night because of the bad weather to ensure that she would be there for work the next day.
Stephanie has also amassed an impressive record as a volunteer at the hospital, accumulating more than 1,300 hours during her years in high school.
Punctuality is almost as important to Stephanie as perfect attendance. "I'm usually early for appointments. I don't like to be late."
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Stephanie Love, a recent graduate ofby CNBPatrick Henry High, had perfect attendance through 12 years of
school. color.