Editor’s note: This is the third in a series recognizing talented graduates from the senior class of 2011. The Inter Lake has created its own “senior award” for each graduate.

Quinn Maroney first found the spotlight her freshman year of high school.

She had wrapped up her first semester at Glacier High School, a mammoth facility compared to the small school she’d known at St. Matthew’s. Maroney had never been in a show before, but her mother, Marcy, had done theater in high school, so she knew a little about drama. Quinn was also a member of the speech and debate team, and many of her teammates were involved in Glacier’s theater department.

“It’s all the same people, all the same friends,” Maroney said.

So she decided to audition and landed the lead role in “Eleemosynary,” a one-act play. Although Maroney, a freshman who had come from a school without a drama program, was an unknown, she stood out from the beginning, said Ivanna Fritz, director of Wolfpack Theatre.

“She was one of those wild card kids: OK, we see some talent there,” Fritz said. “She was fabulous.”

The play lit a fire in Maroney. Over the course of her high school career, she was part of 26 theater productions.

Her roles ranged from speaking pieces to starring in school musicals, the latter of which allowed Maroney to combine acting with another passion: singing. She is a member of the school’s concert choir and Glacier Echoes.

Maroney also worked behind the scenes at some shows, although she said she is much better at acting than coordinating the technical components of a show.

“I’m so bad at tech,” she said, laughing. “I try really hard, too. I’m just bad at timing things.”

Working behind the scenes helped Maroney earn a Wolfpack Founding Members degree, an award for students who have lettered for at least three years, meet a grade-point average requirement and are involved in other activities outside theater, Fritz said.

Maroney was one of four students to earn the award this year.

“She’s just wonderful to work with,” Fritz said. “She really works at her craft; it isn’t just straight talent. She is really dedicated to helping others and making the show great.”

While she loves being on stage, that wasn’t what kept Maroney involved in theater for four years.

“It’s the connections you make with the people you’re working with,” she said. “We’re so close-knit. I’ve never experienced that with any other group of people.”

It helps that many members of that group are also on the speech and debate team, where they can build on their theater bond.

Maroney tried nearly every speech event over the course of her four years on the team; her senior year, she competed in Original Oratory and Impromptu Speaking on Glacier’s state championship team.

Her Oratory piece won Maroney an individual state championship and qualified her for the National Forensic League National Tournament in Dallas in June.

“The topic is important to me,” Maroney said of her winning speech. “It’s something I cared about, was passionate about. It was real. I think that’s why I did well.”

Her speech discusses rape trauma and the importance of not ostracizing people who have experienced rape.

They shouldn’t be treated as victims, she said. “Rather we should embrace them as survivors.”

She first delved into the topic when she read “Ruined,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Lynn Nottage that addresses sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The powerful story inspired Maroney to write her own speech on the topic.

For the most part, the feedback she received from the speech was positive, Maroney said.

“I had quite a few male judges who were really positive,” she said. “I feel like I actually changed lives and opinions.”

Maroney was also an advocate for living drug-free as a member of Students Taking A New Direction (STAND), a club led by Flathead CARE.

After a friend helped her get involved with Flathead CARE’s annual leadership camp last summer, Maroney has been part of the club. This year she was a member of a grant coalition focused on alcohol and tobacco use in Montana.

Maroney said she is passionate about encouraging students not to use drugs and alcohol.

Students use drugs because “we ‘have nothing to do,’” Maroney said, making quotation marks in the air. “Look around us. It’s such a beautiful environment. Why ruin your own body for fun?”

She will continue to advocate making good choices in her chosen career. Maroney leaves this fall for Seattle Pacific University, where she will major in psychology.

“I love helping people,” she said. “I love helping them realize how good life could be — or can be — and the goodness in themselves, and to realize they need to take care of themselves and each other.”

Studying characters and living other people’s emotions during theater productions helped Maroney see the importance of being emotionally helathy.

“You have no idea what pain they’ve gone through, but you get to experience it for two hours and see what they’re feeling,” she said.

She said she hopes to continue that exploration by acting in college productions.

“It’s not self-fulfilling,” she said of theater. “You get to learn about life and learn about other people.”

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.