WOODBURY — If you ever need to get out of your shell, you can count on Hannah Searles, just like how she helped Kaitlyn Boyce. 

“Hannah was one of my first friends in second grade; she was the loud chatty girl and I was the shy quiet one,” says Boyce, now a senior at Nonnewaug. “Our second-grade teacher, Mrs. Tscheppe, put us together hoping that I would quiet her down more and that she would make me more talkative, except for the most part it didn’t work. She was still very talkative, but slowly I became more talkative.”

“I made a very good friend in second grade and we’re still friends today, thanks to our teacher,” Boyce concluded.

Searles feels the same way as Boyce. They both help each other to accomplish their goals and new ideas. 

“I started field hockey because of Kaitlyn,” Searles said. “She said that there weren’t a lot of people interested [and] they needed more players. I wanted to give it a shot. I ended up falling in love with it.”

Boyce is thankful that her friend picked up the sport.

“Hannah is a great teammate. She puts her heart and soul into everything she does, including field hockey,” Boyce said. “She might’ve joined later than most people, but she played with more heart than people who had been playing since sixth grade. Hannah put 100% into every practice and game, and we could see it with her improvements in the past two years.”

Searles is a two-sport athlete, having played softball since she was younger.

“For softball, it was just a family thing,” Searles said. “Everyone in my family loves baseball and my brother always played baseball, so that’s how I started.” 

Dave Green, the wellness teacher at Nonnewaug, loves having Searles’ happy soul around, as both a serious student and a fun person. 

“Hannah is positive. Most of the time she looks for the positive things out of situations,” Green said. “She always enjoys a good joke and she is always giving a good joke. Hannah has a lot of leadership, not only in athletics, but even in ag science, and just in general she is a good leader.” 

Not only is Searles involved in sports, she is also very involved with floriculture — so much that she wants to pursue it as a career. 

“I hope to work for a florist and get a degree in business and then start my own business,” Searles says.

This wasn’t actually part of Searles’ original plans.

“When I started ag, I thought I was going to do something with animals, but then I took the floriculture class my sophomore year and I loved it,” Searles says. “It’s something that I’ve always liked but never loved until I started learning more about it. I like the design aspect of floriculture, and that’s why I want to continue with it. “

In 2023, Searles was the first-place winner in the Connecticut FFA floriculture competition. 

“I was confident,” Searles said. “We all worked hard and studied well for the competition, and because we had placed second last year, I knew we would do well. … We ended up doing amazing and placing first as a team, as well as all four of us placing top-five individually.”  

Eric Birkenberger, the floriculture teacher, has been with Searles almost every day for the three years she has been in the class.

“She’s always here asking for help, [and] she stays at the end and helps clean up,” Birkenberger says. “I don’t even have to worry about giving her a kick in the pants to get started; she’s always the first one to do so, and she helps encourage other kids. Hannah is outstanding. She’s always not only working to work, but she’s always working in a nice way. She’s nice to people but still able to get her job done.”