Future’s planned out

Kaylene Steele knows exactly what she wants to do with her life and has most of the next decade mapped out. The Post Falls High School senior plans to become a midwife, helping women deliver their babies.

“My mom went to a midwife with me and my little brother and she said it was one of the greatest things she’s ever done,” Steele said. “I also job shadowed a midwife and decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

Steele just finished her certified nursing assistant training. She’ll spend the next two years at North Idaho College to get her medical prerequisites, then go on to Webber State in Ogden, Utah, to become a registered nurse. From there she’ll attend the Salt Lake School of Midwifery. With an internship in both the RN portion and the midwife portion of her training, she expects to spend six to eight years learning her chosen profession.

“We had a reverse job fair where we had to job shadow, write a paper and make a career display. We had to present it to a few different people for interviews,” Kaylene said. “I liked the program. It showed a lot of people what they need to do to get into a career or if they really wanted it or not.”

Steele was able to shadow a local midwife where she sat in on prenatal exams and post delivery exams. “There was one I actually got to watch the water break. That was cool,” she said.

Idaho doesn’t require midwives to first pass a state board, but Steele said she wants to do it right. Her mother’s midwife encouraged her to get her RN certification first, then take midwife schooling.

Steele was actively involved in Peers Encouraging Abstinent Kids and Health Occupation Students of America her senior year. She worked summers housekeeping for several companies and said she loves doing anything outside, particularly riding dirt bikes, hiking and backpacking. She likes country and modern music and listening to orchestra.

Her parents are Scott and Cherie Steele, and she has two brothers and two sisters.

After all her schooling is complete, will we see Steele again? “I want to move back up to Idaho,” she said. “I think it’s safer up here.”