Graduation approaches at St. Joseph’s high schools, and students stare down the road of life. The road for Harrison Smith, 23, leads to more education and a career that’s taking him far from his St. Joseph school days at Bessie Ellison Elementary School and Bode Middle School.

This 2003 Central High School graduate will, on May 23, become a 2008 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

With more school, this 6-foot-1, 215-pound midshipman will become a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps after he reports in June to the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va.

Success at the academy started back in St. Joseph at Central High School.

High school history and English courses put him ahead of many classmates at the academy, the midshipman said. He’s finishing a senior paper on the unification of Germany and how militarism and nationalism affected the 20th century.

The problem area for him at the academy wasn’t the humanities, it was mathematics and science.

It required taking a year out before entering the academy to go to prep school, he said. He talked to fellow Central graduates Chuck Dudik and Steven Lee Gilgour, who also earned appointments to the Naval Academy and are now serving in the military, about their high school educations. Mr. Smith said all three agreed that they needed a stronger math and science program in high school.

Once he entered the academy, he learned to rise at 5:30 a.m. each day and follow an exacting schedule that requires long hours and observes full military protocols. Each summer, he’s been on assignments that have stressed learning about military life, including how to salute, march and handle a rifle. Training included sailing the East Coast one summer with about 12 other midshipmen in a 40-foot sailboat and going on board the USS Tucson, a Los Angeles class attack submarine, for an undersea cruise.

A lineman when he played football for Central, he went on to be an aggressive rugby player at the academy.

Now, the reddish-blond midshipman looks forward to a career that will include a lot of Marine schools as he marches into the future. The graduating class of 1,000 midshipmen includes about 250 future Marine officers.

U.S. Sens. Christopher Bond and Jean Carnahan appointed Mr. Smith in 2003. A year later, after completing prep school, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves provided the final appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. The midshipman’s parents, Jarvis and Anita Smith, live in St. Charles, Mo. His parents taught in the St. Joseph School District for several years.

Today, Mr. Smith works for American Family Insurance. The couple will attend their son’s graduation next month in Annapolis.

Marshall White can be reached at marshall@npgco.com.