Solanco High School senior Megan Santiago describes herself as a "very mix-match person."

She's a cheerleader who loves agriculture but is thinking about becoming a pastry chef.

She would like to open a bake shop in Quarryville, where she was born and raised.

"I just love where I live. All my family's here. I love my family. I would never leave," said Santiago, 17, daughter of Charles and Tiffany Santiago and sister of Madison, 10.

The vivacious honor roll student, who said her favorite thing to do is smile, gets "mostly As and Bs" and has been selected as student of the month numerous times.

Her favorite class is science, but she also loves art, especially photography, along with drawing, design and printmaking. One of her prints won first place at the Solanco Fair last month.

"Everyone tells me I'm very creative."

She said she is "thinking about" studying culinary arts at York Technical Institute next year.

But the Lancaster County 4-H Milk Duds Dairy Club officer said she will "always love agriculture, even if it's not my career."

This school year, she is vice president of Solanco's FFA, which she joined in 10th grade, when she became the proud owner of Dixie, a heifer. Next year, she plans to show pigs.

In previous years, the girl with the green thumb won the FFA Star Greenhand Award, was a delegate at the state convention and chaired three other conventions. She also played softball for FFA.

At Solanco, she has taken six FFA classes, ranging from animal science to land use and management. This school year she plans to take building construction and welding.

Santiago will continue with FFA and 4-H for another three years after high school.

This semester she was so busy preparing for the fair that she sacrificed cheering, but she hopes to re-join the squad for basketball season.

At the fair, she showed Dixie, and she entered and placed in a majority of more than 30 categories of canned and baked goods and home-grown vegetables, winning "more blue ribbons than I could count."

"I took off a week of school. It's hard work. I can't wait 'til it's here. I love it when it's going on. But I can't wait 'til it's over."

Santiago has participated in the fair since she was 8 months old, when she won third place in the Fancy Dress category.

Previously, she won first place with Dixie in the Holstein Spring Calf category and received a Dairy Calf Award for a research project.

At Solanco, Santiago also is a member of the Ophelia Club, a mentoring program for elementary school students with disabilities, and LINK Crew, a mentoring program for incoming freshmen.

And she is a Renaissance intern, helping to run the program that rewards and recognizes academic achievement.

She acknowledged she's busy, but said, "I try to do the best I can in everything I do."

Santiago learned to bake from her grandmothers, who both live nearby. She is especially proud of a recent creation, a birthday cake shaped and decorated as a Case IH tractor.

Her hobbies include fishing and hunting.

"I definitely love to go fishing. I go all the time. My Pap-Pap and uncle take me. I've caught zillions of trout. I've been fishing since I could hold a pole."

She hunts deer and squirrel.

"I have a pink 20-gauge shotgun, but I've never killed anything because I really don't want to."

She goes to Elvis impersonator concerts with her "grami" — "I love Elvis; I will always love Elvis" — and hard rock concerts with her dad.

Her favorite holiday is Halloween, because "I love to be scared and to laugh. I love Field of Screams." Her next favorite holiday is July 4th, when her family has a huge party.

Santiago started working when she was 13, first busing and then waitressing.

"I'm a people person. I love to talk to people."

She's working two jobs now, at Musser's Market, Quarryville, and at Cherry Crest Farm, Ronks.

Previously, she worked three jobs, including in the farm education center at Cherry Crest Adventure Farm. She's also worked in a chicken house, with 25,000 chicks.

With her earnings, she bought a purple 1994 Dodge Dakota.

"I love it. It's my personality. I'm girlie yet tough, oh, yeah!"