Just built differently
Samantha McDonald graduates Righetti High School and Allan Hancock College
Samantha McDonald was 13 years old when the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, forcing schools across the United States to transfer from in-person to virtual learning sessions. Then a seventh-grader, Samantha suddenly discovered she had a lot of free time for the first time in her young life.
Most kids that age would use the time to sleep or play video games. They would take out their phones and scroll social media or click through an array of services looking for something to stream.
Not Samantha.
An older friend wanted to take a class at Allan Hancock College, so Samantha asked her parents if she could too. After getting approval from them and Allan Hancock administration, Samantha entered Dance 101, even though her older friend ended up not taking the class.
“I had so much fun,” she said. “I asked my mom if I could take another one, and then it just kept going from there.”
On May 20, Samantha turned 18 years old. On June 12, she will graduate from Ernest Righetti High School (RHS). On May 23, she graduated from Allan Hancock with associate degrees in math and science, arts and humanities, and behavioral sciences.
Dubbed “baby Sammy” by classmates at Allan Hancock, Samantha hasn’t just stacked degrees. She’s also involved in so many clubs, she sometimes has to write their names down just to remember what each acronym means. Some of the organizations she volunteers for at RHS include the California Scholarship Federation, National Honor Society, Early Academic Outreach Program, Key Club, and ASTRA — a community service organization.
When she was 10 years old, Samantha joined Vineyard 4-H, a youth development organization. She raised chickens and lambs as one of several projects for which she volunteered.
So, when she got to RHS and joined Future Farmers of America, Samantha was already prepared when the group required her to raise another lamb.
“Raising a lamb is a lot of fun,” she said. “You get to learn about time management, responsibility, and taking care of something other than yourself.”
Samantha said she developed a two-hour hair grooming process she usually performs three times per week on her lambs and practices with her breeders in Nipomo on Fridays from the end of May until the Santa Barbara County Fair in July to prepare for showing her lambs at the festival.
She doesn’t just raise lambs. Since she was in eighth grade, Samantha has also been raising puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind, another passion she developed during the pandemic.
“I get these puppies when they're eight weeks, and I have them until they're about 16 months old — that's when they go back to San Rafael for their formal guide work training,” Samantha said. “During the time I have them, it’s my job to make sure they have proper socialization, good house manners, and basic obedience skills.”
Samantha said she takes the puppies just about everywhere — except for big events like the Santa Barbara County Fair. She said the help of family members and puppy sitters allows that to be one of the only times she’s away from her puppies.
On May 4, Samantha’s fourth and most-recent puppy, Etienne, finished training with her and returned to San Rafael for formal guide work training.
“This past semester, I spent a lot of time at Hancock's Math Center because I was taking a difficult statistics class,” Samantha said. “He spent a lot of time in the math center, too.”
Ever the animal lover, Samantha also cares for two special needs cats named Malti and Rolo.
Samatha said Matli has a condition known as cerebellar hypoplasia, meaning the part of her brain that helps her with mobility didn’t fully develop, causing her to shake when she walks and run into walls. After being born with her back legs paralyzed, Rollo spent time in a wheelchair before miraculously learning how to walk one day, Samantha said.
“She’s our miracle.”
Rolo isn’t the McDonald’s family’s only one. Samantha’s mother Mandy considers Samantha the same way.
Mandy said Samantha was born via in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a process that involves fertilizing the sperm and egg outside of a person’s body.
“I could not get pregnant. We tried for quite a while. It just wasn’t happening,” Mandy said. “When I found out I was pregnant with Samantha, [my husband and I] truly thought she was going to be our one and only. From day one, she was just built differently. She’s a miracle.”
Holding back tears, Mandy said she’s incredibly proud to see Samantha become a leader and role model at such a young age. She said Samantha’s 16-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister now both take college courses at Allan Hancock, thanks to their big sister’s inspiration.
“I don’t know how I’ve gotten so lucky to be able to say she’s my daughter,” Mandy said. “I was nothing like that in high school. I don’t know what [my husband and I] did, but I’ll take it.”
This upcoming fall, Samantha will attend the University of San Francisco (USF) to study nursing. Mandy said Samantha discovered her calling while helping care for her sick grandmother.
“For as long as she could likely ever remember, my mom, her grandmother, had breast cancer. She passed away almost a year ago now,” Mandy said. “Samantha became so used to being a caregiver that it never dawned on her as a career to pursue. When my mother passed away, she had the realization: ‘This is what I’m meant to do.’”
When she graduates from RHS in June, Samantha will finish at the top of her class with a 4.7 GPA.
“It's about finding that perfect balance and having a good support system,” Samantha said. “Being a freshman and wanting to try everything was definitely a trial and error [process].”
After two years on junior varsity, Samantha spent this past fall playing for RHS’ varsity tennis team. She also works as a ranch hand and rides horses competitively.
“After school, I would go out to the barn, clean the horses, and then I'd ride,” Samantha said. “It’s a good distraction.”
This month, Samantha received her State Seal of Biliteracy in American Sign Language. If she can find the time, she said she hopes to learn Spanish in the next few years.
On top of it all, Samantha was also an Elks Rodeo Queen candidate this year, fundraising for Children's Resource and Referral of Santa Barbara County to provide basic needs for foster children from newborns to teenagers.
A big fan of traveling and the outdoors, Samantha’s been to 49 of the 50 states. She said she plans to visit Alaska this summer and complete her list.
Also a fan of the Los Angeles Angeles, Samantha has been to every MLB stadium except the Toronto Blue Jays’ Rogers Centre. She said the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park was her favorite.
Believe it or not, somehow, Samantha still manages to ensure she’s usually in bed by 9:40 and asleep by 10 p.m.
Of all of her daughter’s unique traits, Mandy said she’s especially proud of Samantha’s ability to turn challenges into accomplishments and store the skills she gains like tools on a tool belt. She said she’s humbled by Samantha’s ability to do so much and make it all look effortless.
Instead of focusing on the work each new extracurricular activity adds to Samantha’s to-do list, Mandy said she sees the friends her daughter gains and the opportunities she gets to participate in as benefits.
“I know there are some adults who will say, ‘That’s super impressive, but you’ve missed out on your youth,’” Mandy said. “In Sam’s case… I don't feel like she's missed out, and, more importantly, she doesn't feel like she's missed out.”
Most parents would never let their daughter miss her senior prom to campaign for rodeo queen. Not the McDonalds. Instead of worrying about potential losses, Mandy, echoing Samantha, highlighted what was gained.
“She looked at it like, ‘Yes, I can go to my prom, but how many other events will I be able to go to, dance, and have fun,’” Mandy said. “Yeah, I didn't go to my prom, but at the same time, I'm raising funds for my community and bringing awareness to the organization I'm representing.”
Samantha’s asks may seem daunting to the parents reading at home, but Mandy said she’s glad she let her daughter find her own path.
“As parents, naturally, we’re cautious because we want to protect our children,” Mandy said. “But, looking at my own kid, I would have been foolish if I held her back from taking classes or letting her be a part of experiences simply because I wasn't aware of what to expect.”
When she was in eighth grade, Samantha took COMM 101 Public Speaking, a class most students save for the end of their time at Allan Hancock.
Giving speeches to a room full of college kids would be too overwhelming for most 13-year-olds. Not Samantha. All she saw was another tool for her tool belt.
Now, Samantha travels all over California to compete and judge teams in sectional, regional, and state-level public speaking competitions. She encouraged readers to use her anecdote as a motivator to reach for the chance they may fear taking.
“Every shot you don’t take is an opportunity missed,” Samantha said. “I recommend students talk with their teachers, advisors, counselors, and just take that leap. You never know where it's going to take you.”
*This story was originally published May 29, 2025, at https://www.santamariasun.com/news/one-local-graduates-from-righetti-high-school-allan-hancock-college-at-same-time-16527982