Becoming a medical examiner is Wasatch High School senior Scarlett Elton’s dream job in a very literal sense.
After having a dream that she was a medical examiner, her lifelong fascination with the macabre, horror movies and special effects makeup morphed into a desire to provide closure to families after a loved one’s death.
In late January, the 18 year old began working with corpses as an intern at Probst Family Funeral Home in Midway. The work was difficult to stomach at first.
“A couple weeks ago, when I did the dressing, I got very nauseous. And I was like, ‘Oh, I definitely need a minute,’ because it’s very different seeing them out of the casket rather than in. You can see all their imperfections. There’s no makeup done. They’re not dressed yet. And you have to touch them. That was what unsettled me a little bit,” she said.
Elton’s mentor, funeral director Katarina Ryanna, told her to leave the room, sit down and catch her breath.
“For, like, five minutes, I was just taking deep breaths and overcoming the anxiety and the sickness. And then I was like, ‘OK, I can do this.’ Gave myself some confidence, hyped myself up. And then I just went back in there,” Elton said. “I’ve waited years to get here to this, and I finally have it. I need to do it.”
Nowadays, she speaks to the corpses she’s dressing, both to make herself more comfortable and to “lead their spirit(s) on.”
She’s also helped organize graveside services, including a Romanian Orthodox one. Her internship has exposed her not only to a wide variety of cultures but to the intimate experience of mourning.
“I feel like I’m in something private with (families). … They’re just mourning this loved one and sharing stories,” she said. “I feel like I start to learn the person from those stories.”
After only two months, Elton said she feels better prepared to handle autopsies in the future. She plans to study forensic science at Utah Valley University or Colorado State University after she graduates in May.
Elton’s internship was facilitated through Wasatch County School District’s work-based learning program, which gives high school students career experience through internships with local employers.
The program has existed at Wasatch High School since the 1990s.
The focus of work-based learning programs used to be providing students with elective credits for working a job in the community during or after school hours. But in 2016, Utah schools shifted the focus of their work-based learning programs to providing internships and apprenticeships, according to Weston Broadbent, director of Wasatch County School District Career & Technical Education. That was after Utah leaders participated in the National Governors Association’s Policy Academy on Scaling Work-Based Learning, which focused on how states could expand their work-based learning programs.
Derik Bringhurst has been the coordinator of Wasatch High School’s work-based learning program for the past 13 months. Last autumn, he also started a work-based learning program at Wasatch Alternative High School, which provides nontraditional schooling for sophomores, juniors and seniors who do not thrive in a traditional classroom environment.
Currently, there are 39 students enrolled in work-based learning at the main campus and 14 at the alternative high school. Next year, students at the new Deer Creek High School will also participate in the program.
The program requires that students meet with Bringhurst for half an hour every two weeks to talk over their internships and careers. He also gives students a crash course about the professional world: resumes, job websites, dress, punctuality, communication and more.
The alternative high school’s program focuses on teaching those skills, hosting guest speakers and conducting field trips to job sites rather than internships. Only two of the 14 students are currently in internships, though Bringhurst is looking to change that in future semesters.
Internships are often created for one specific student. That’s how Elton’s internship came about. She approached Bringhurst about her interest as a junior, and by the time she’d turned 18, Bringhurst was able to funnel her into an internship.
“If we don’t have the internship, I go look for the internship,” he said.
Wasatch High School student Clayton Knudsen is an intern at Finch Welding & Fabrication through the high school’s work-based learning program. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
Wasatch High School student Clayton Knudsen works with Finch Welding & Fabrication’s Nate Brockbank, who manages the structural welding part of the business. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
Wasatch High School student Clayton Knudsen hopes to weld on deep ocean rigs or rollercoasters. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record 
Wasatch High School student Clayton Knudsen prefers hands-on work, which is why he’s interested in welding. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record
This semester, he also created a welding internship at Finch Welding & Fabrication for junior Clayton Knudsen.
He moved to Wasatch County and enrolled at Wasatch High School halfway through his freshman year, when there were slim pickings for course offerings.
He wound up in an agricultural mechanics class and fell in love with welding by accident.
“For a while, I wanted to go into paleontology, geology. I just wanted a job where I was out constantly working with my hands and didn’t have to sit there and just try and stay calm, because I have ADHD, so I cannot sit still,” he said.
Knudsen believes welding is a smart career path because it is unlikely to be threatened by advances in artificial intelligence, and it will provide a safety net if he ever wants to try another career.
He aspires to weld a rollercoaster or a deep ocean rig.
“It’s a very big commitment, and it’s dangerous because you’re going hundreds of feet under the water,” he said about the latter. “Most of the time, it’s just going down, you do a five-minute weld, and you’re going back up. It takes hours.”
And there’s pressure to the job beyond the deep ocean variety.
“If you don’t get that right, and you send this out to a job site, you’re risking someone else’s life or someone else’s entire project,” he said.
Knudsen isn’t the only intern preparing for a high-pressure work environment.
Unlike Knudsen, senior Madison Lofgran has known the career she’s wanted to pursue since childhood.
“First grade, I remember, I have this photo of me with a doctor’s mask on and these massive gloves. It was my presentation: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’” she said.
The only problem for Lofgran has been narrowing down her field of interest. Her internship at Intermountain Health Heber Valley Hospital has helped in that regard.
Unlike some other peers interning at the hospital, like junior Ella Collett, who is studying nutrition, Lofgran’s internship isn’t tied to any one field. Instead, it gives her a sample platter of departments by allowing her to shadow a variety of experts.
Lofgran can’t wait to graduate from high school.
“Really, the only thing keeping me going is the internship,” she said.
She plans to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after graduating. When she gets back, she’ll enter Brigham Young University’s medical program and finally decide her area of expertise.
Senior Tucker Patterson, 18, also plans on serving a mission when he graduates. When he returns, he’ll be nearing 21, the age at which he’ll be able to become a police officer.
Patterson has been a member of the Heber City Police Department’s Volunteers in Police Service program since July 2024. The program allows community members to help the police department in minor ways, such as tabling community events, issuing parking warnings and directing traffic when officers respond to an accident.
Patterson remembers the first traffic accident he responded to. He had been a part of the program for only four hours and was in a patrol car with a police officer when they were called to the scene.
“That was like, ‘Holy crap, I’m going to die,’” Patterson recalled. “Running down Main Street with your lights and sirens on? That’s definitely a unique experience.”
The experience of law enforcement has lived up to Patterson’s fantasy, which was first fostered by watching the 1970s television EMT drama “Emergency!” as a child.
Since then, he knew he wanted to be a first responder, but it wasn’t until he became friendly with his school resource officer, T.C. Thomas, as an underclassman that he became interested in police work.
Thomas introduced Patterson to the Police Department’s Heber Valley Peer Court program, which gives youth who have committed minor offenses the opportunity to be judged by a panel of their peers rather than in juvenile court. The panelists then decide on a fitting disposition, often involving volunteer hours, that the youth must complete.
Thomas invited him to participate in the Volunteers in Police Service program not long after.
“Everyone’s a mentor over there,” Patterson said.
In fact, Chief Parker Sever and Deputy Chief Branden Russell attended the recent gathering where Patterson opened his mission call to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Patterson said he hopes to be hired by a local agency when he returns.
Bringhurst thought that wouldn’t be a problem for Patterson or any of the other students in the work-based learning program.
“I love it when the employers see the value in the intern and turn around and hire them,” he said. “And we’ve had more hires this year than last year. Last year, we had a few of them. This year, I bet I can put on paper at least 10 of them, 10 of 39, who are going to get hired by this summer.”