Elly Schaefer heading to Ghana

here will be no senior prom for Moorhead senior Elly Schaefer. She won't have her locker decorated at Moorhead for her birthday. She will not be part of the "Black Hole" student section for football games.

She won't be going to homecoming, and she won't be in the middle of the field at Jim Gotta Stadium handing her parents flowers for "Senior Night" as part of the girls soccer team.

That's not what Schaefer will miss, as she heads to Ghana—a country in West Africa—to study abroad her senior year. She'll miss all of it collectively.

"I went to prom junior year, so I got that experience," Schaefer said. "There aren't specific events that I'm really sad about missing. It's everything in general. The hardest part for me, as I was doing things my junior year, I didn't realize they were the last time I was doing them. That's hard."

Before she leaves Sept. 2, the captain of the girls soccer team will get one last soccer match with the Spuds. She'll play Saturday in the season opener against Rogers at 5 p.m. at Jim Gotta Stadium.

"If I could think of anybody that could do this, it would be Elly because of her maturity," Moorhead soccer coach Nicole Wiesner said. "I can just imagine her being with kids in Africa and them just loving her. They're never going to want her to leave. She just has this way about her, like a teacher, where she's very friendly and energetic. She's always questioning and wanting to know more."

Wiesner remembered her days of being a captain on the soccer team in her senior year of Moorhead.

"It's kind of a big deal," Wiesner said. "She's going to miss 'Senior Night' where the seniors get congratulated and the banquet at the end of the year. She's going to miss the team meals and the three overnight stays we have. She's been a part of putting this team together all summer. She won't get to see the end result, but she's looking at the bigger picture. She's trying to change the world and she's going to come back ready to take on the world in college."

The Yes Abroad program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It provides merit-based scholarships for U.S. citizens aged 15-18.5 to study for one academic year in select countries.

It was two days before the application was due for a full scholarship when Schaefer's father sent her information about the program. Schaefer wrote four essays, got two letters of recommendation, had her father write a statement and described all her activities in time to be eligible.

Then, she put it all in the back of her mind, thinking nothing of competing with students across the country for a chance to study in a different country. Until she got accepted. Then came an in-person interview in Washington, D.C., to be accepted to the program.

"For both stages when I got accepted it was just shock because I hoped, but I didn't want to seriously think about it in case I didn't get it," said Schaefer, who has a 4.0 grade-point average at Moorhead. "Especially the finalist email. It was just a life-changing moment. In that moment I opened the email, everything changed."

Part of what got Schaefer into soccer when she was 5 years old was it was different than most sports in regards to using feet.

"That's why I started playing," Schaefer said. "As I've gone through it, there's so much more to it with all the tactics and getting your position."

She didn't imagine her second year on varsity would end after the first match of the season.

"It'll be really bittersweet just because it'll be my last time playing for Moorhead,"Schaefer said. "It'll also be amazing because at least I get that one game, so I'm excited for it."

The adventure Schaefer is about to embark on is a little different than the average high school senior year. That doesn't faze Schaefer because she's not the average high school senior.

"Everyone says your senior everything happens and it's so amazing, but I kind of figured living abroad for a year would be so much more important and more amazing in the long run that it won't compare," Schaefer said.