Ilwaco twins earn twin scholarships to Columbia U.
Thursday, June 7, 2007 11:52 PM PDT
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleILWACO --- The Tarabochia twins are so in tune they'll ask the other for insights into themselves.
"What kind of music do I like, Bryan?"
"Hey, Alex, do I have any stories about you?"
And now they're sharing a special honor.
The twins, who turned 18 two days before graduating from Ilwaco High School Thursday, won identical scholarships to Columbia University in New York City. The undergraduate scholarships pay full tuition and living expenses.
The boys are identical in looks, but their inner differences are clear.
"Each of us have bigger strengths," said Alex Tarabochia, who attends all classes with his brother, Bryan. "He's better at math and science. He tutors me there. I'm better at English. I teach him how to make a sentence sound great. We balance each other out with our strengths and weaknesses."
"It's our own mini-study group," said Bryan. "We can always push each other to do things. ... If we're experiencing hard times, we can always talk with each other. We're very open. I would never give up having a twin. It's great."
Their English teacher, David Arney, summed them up this way:
"Alex is a head person, and Bryan is a heart person."
They're involved in Knowledge Bowl and band (Alex plays tuba, Bryan drums). Since around ninth grade, they have operated their own commercial gillnet boat.
They share equal love for their closely knit small school of 350 students and New York City, which they have visited several times.
"I'm really excited for them, too," Arney said. "It's nice to see people aiming for really high goals and not being afraid ... having grown up in a very small place, to take the risk of going to a city with 13 million people in it. I'm glad to see them have the desire to make the best of what they can of themselves."
Alex's goal is to become a pediatrician specializing in a particular field, possibly cancer. Bryan is undecided but is considering law or neuroscience.
"I really want to help people," Alex said. "I like to be really productive, and as a doctor I would be busy all the time because my career would demand a lot of me. As for helping people, it's really important we give back to society. ... I want to help families, especially children."
"I like law because there are a lot of injustices in the world," said Bryan, who would specialize in criminal law if he chose that major. "As for neuroscience, I think the brain is interesting. I'd like to learn about it, possibly become like a doctor."
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