Class of 2000: Where are they now?

Emily Galvin applied to two colleges during her senior year at West High School - the University of Iowa and Harvard.

Actually, she applied early to Harvard and, once accepted, never finished the other application.

She left Iowa City in the fall of 2000 - and never moved back. She majored in English at Harvard, graduated in 2004, tried acting, published a book of poetry, worked for a production company and wrote tag lines for movie posters. Now she's attending Stanford Law School. She graduates next month and wants to be a public defender.

“I love Iowa City,” Galvin, 26, said. “I would come back in a heartbeat, but the things I want to do are geared for the worst of the worst, and luckily, Iowa doesn't have that.”

Another thing Iowa doesn't have, of course, is Galvin, and many people like her.

An informal survey of some of the best students in the Class of 2000 at Iowa City West and Cedar Rapids Washington high schools shows that, 10 years after they walked across the podium, top students have overwhelmingly left their home state behind. They're pursuing careers from Anchorage, Alaska, to Pasadena, Calif., to Hershey, Pa.

From 1995 to 2000, nearly 30,000 people between the ages of 25 and 34 left Iowa, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That was the most severe “brain drain” - rapid exodus of single, educated young adults - for any state except North Dakota, and the Class of 2000 shows that many of those brains are leaving long before they reach the age of 25.

C.R. Wash: Dreams lead students far from home

Principal Ralph Plagman has presided over the graduation ceremonies at Washington High School since 1981.

He gives a similar speech each year - about 15 minutes, outlining the class's accomplishments in academics, music, athletics, drama, debate. On May 27, 2000, he closed with these words:

“Graduates, we will miss you. You are like family to us, and it is hard to say goodbye. But we sent those letters again last March, and there are 413 eighth graders ready to begin high school in about three months. So, we wish you Godspeed, and we hope that you will return to tell us of your achievements and your contributions to our world.”

Off they went, and the students with the best grades, generally, went the farthest.

Of 29 valedictorians in Washington's Class of 2000, The Gazette located 14. They are getting doctorates in Los Angeles, teaching music in Minneapolis, working from military bases in Florida, helping deaf children in St. Louis and doing accounting in Alaska. Three live in Cedar Rapids.

Jacob Wilwert flies a B-52 bomber for the U.S. Air Force. He's seen the Northern Lights from the sky over Alaska, watched a Japanese volcano erupt and, in a training exercise, bombed an obsolete Navy destroyer to the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Hawaii.

Wilwert, 28, is stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La. He and his wife - whose family lives near Chicago - have talked about returning to the Midwest, but that wouldn't be for several years.

“You have dreams of doing something, and a lot of times that something isn't in Iowa,” Wilwert said.

People often talk about mountains and beaches - and Iowa's lack thereof - as a reason for the brain drain, but the career path of Sarah (Spina) Longino illustrates two practical factors that draw high-achieving Cedar Rapids students away for good. Jobs in specialized fields are more available in big cities, and the reputations of universities are regional, so students who go away to college will likely stay where their degree is recognized.

Longino, 28, is getting a doctorate in clinical psychology at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, Calif. She wants to work with people who have schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

She and her husband actually moved back to Iowa, where he started law school at the University of Iowa, but they returned to California so she could get an internship to finish her doctorate. The few internships available in Iowa were often taken by UI students, and while Fuller is well-known in southern California, the name carries less weight here, Longino said.

“For me to actually graduate, we had to move back to California. The state of Iowa has fewer internships than the city of Los Angeles,” Longino said.

Brian Kessler, 28, was one of six students who spoke at commencement in 2000. He got a degree in physics from the UI and went on to graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley. He's wrapping up a doctorate there and is beginning a full-time job for a startup trying to build energy-efficient filters that make salt water fresh.

He'll be in northern California for the foreseeable future. He never felt like he had to get out of Eastern Iowa, but companies where he can get a job in his field - condensed matter physics - are most common near San Francisco and Boston, he said.

Not every member of the class left Cedar Rapids for good. Laurel Zmolek-Smith, 28, also gave a speech at that 2000 graduation before heading off to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She studied or worked in Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala and Mexico.

“I basically thought Iowa was the last place I'd ever end up,” she said.

She met her future husband, Luis Giraldo Castaneda, in Puerto Rico at a salsa-dancing class that she taught. He helped bring her back. He was an engineering student from Colombia, and Zmolek-Smith's mother suggested he get a job at Rockwell Collins, which he did. So he lived with Zmolek-Smith's mother while Zmolek-Smith finished a master's degree in Puerto Rico.

Now she teaches English Language Learners at Linn-Mar High School. She still loves to travel and has no idea whether she and her husband will stay in Cedar Rapids.

“We have great schools. There's a lot of benefits to living here, but the excitement factor's pretty low,” she said.

West High: Top students follow the opportunities

West High School's Class of 2000 boasted nine valedictorians.

Of the nine, three still live in Iowa - two of them doctors in resident programs at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

“It was never part of the plan that I was going to stay here,” said Erik Alexander, a first-year dermatology resident.

Alexander completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at Iowa. He moved to Milwaukee for one year to do his internship - he said he needed to live elsewhere, at least once - but had no reservations about returning to his hometown for his residency.

“I don't have a strong desire to leave Iowa,” said Alexander, 28.

If the right opportunity came along, he wouldn't rule out leaving, either.

That's what the decision on where to live comes down to for the brainiest of West High alumni - opportunity. It's the main reason most of those nine valedictorians are now living outside the Hawkeye State.

“When an opportunity opens up, you just kind of go with it,” said Joanne Wen, 28.

Wen is a first-year ophthalmology resident at the Jules Stein Eye Institute of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California–Los Angeles. She graduated from Harvard in 2004.

Wen hopes to be finished with her training, including a fellowship, within the next five years but doubts she will return to Iowa.

Wen married James Puckett two years ago. While she could find a job in Iowa, her husband's field - he has a doctorate in chemistry - is more specialized. The couple need a state that meets their professional needs.

That's why Nathan Spanheimer lives in Charlotte, N.C.

Spanheimer, 28, graduated from Duke University in 2004 and returned to Iowa for law school, graduating in 2007. He's an associate with Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, an international financial services law firm.

“There weren't a lot of options for the type of law I wanted to practice in Iowa,” he said.

Katherine (Smirl) Truex assumed she would go wherever her career took her, because that's what her parents did.

“The reason I grew up in Iowa is because my dad was recruited to the University of Iowa,” said Truex, 28.

Truex earned her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University. She's finishing her doctorate in applied physics at the University of Michigan.

“Most people my age are following their jobs right now,” Truex said. “Obviously, there are opportunities offered in other places that aren't available in Iowa City.”

Sarah Karniski, 27, graduated from the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan Law School, and works as an associate in the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery in Washington. Her legal practice focuses on antitrust legislation, which has limited application in Iowa.

“You can always come back, but when you're young, you need those experiences for your career,” Karniski said.

Still, barring Iowa winters, there's little the West alumni would change about the state. Living in Iowa City, they were exposed to numerous cultural opportunities and diversity. The concentrated population of educated people promoted learning.

“We had the opportunity to see and experience so much,” Karniski said. “It brought the world to our front door.”

And in the process, made them eager to see it.

“I really love Iowa City,” said Margaret Larson, 28. “For a long time, I never considered moving.”

Larson graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in accounting. She was working in Iowa City when she became a backup singer for Public Property, a reggae-ska band. In 2006, the band went on tour, and Larson spent nearly four years traveling the United States.

Public Property is on hiatus, playing limited shows in Iowa City. Larson started a new job as office manager at Hawkeye Family Dental in December. She said the stability is welcome after life on the road.

“I really haven't thought about going farther than this at this point,” she said. “I'm kind of at a transition in my life right now.”

Where that life will be lived is part of the question. Larson's travels made her picture living elsewhere for the first time.

“If I move, I will come back,” Larson said. “Iowa City is a good place to raise a family.”