Bowman High School welcomed Roadtrip Nation and actress Tracey Gold to help guide students to make their passions into careers.

The annual assembly comes from the combined efforts of Roadtrip Nation, Hart District Unified School District and AT&T’s “Aspire” program.

Roadtrip Nation has been working 15 years to bring students to professionals to help fuel students passion and help fuel potential careers.

AT&T Aspire is a program that since 2008 has helped more than one million high school students connect to future careers and help give them the technical skills.

The assembly started with a quick lesson on what Roadtrip Nation is and what it does. It later quized the students on this and rewarded them with hats and sunglasses with Roadtrip Nation logos.

The assembly also brought Tracey Gold, who rose to fame by appearing on the show “Growing Pains,” to speak about her time as a child actress as well as her personal fight with anorexia.

Gold detailed how she had a “bout with anorexia” when she was 11, and how over the course of her time on Growing Pains that it ignited a life battle between her and her eating disorder.

Her story and struggle crossed many years, from the fat jokes the writers put into her script, to when her boyfriend nailed her bathroom closed so she couldn’t purge during a bout with bulimia.

For Gold, her story came to a head when her bosses on “Growing Pains” had her admitted into a eating disorder clinic. This decision led Gold onto the path of recovery and her road to success, she said.

She attempted to connect to students who maybe going through the same issue in their lives currently. Telling how she couldn’t change until she wanted to change, and that led to her recovery.

“We’re all human, we all fall, and we all get up, and when we get up is when it matters,” Gold said. “It helps us define our roads.”

After Gold stepped down, Paul Casey, the event leader stepped up to conduct an activity to help students build their own roadmap to their success.

“We want to help students find interests and take those interests into a career,” Casey said. “We want students to learn there is no limits in jobs when they turn their passions into careers.”

| Skylar Barti