Campobello Island has tiny graduating class

It's not yet official, but it may be safe to say Campobello Island wins the prize for the smallestnumber of graduates from one schoolin New Brunswick this yearonly nine.

Graduating student Nakita Ashby said she wouldn't call it a class.

"It's seriously like having a big family," she said.

Once a playground for well-to-do Americans, Campobello Island, with a population of 1,000,is still a tourist draw. It's also home to lobster and scallop fishermen.

The Canadian island istwo ferry rides away from the Canadian mainland and only a bridge away from Lubec, Maine.

Ashby got her prom hair teased in another country across the international bridge, withU.S. customs on one end, Canadian customs on the other.

"When you have to go through the border, and it's a 30-minute drive from my house, and then you have to go back through the border, and if they're feeling like giving you a hard time, you have to explain, 'Well, I went to get my hair done, and my eyebrows waxed, and I'm coming back.'"

The international balancing act that is part of Campobello history exists for the nine graduates. Seven out of nine hold dual citizenship, and three will continue their studies in the U.S.

Even the setting for the pre-prom pictures is an example of the island's international straddle.

Roosevelt Campobello National Park is managed and financed by both countries, and named after Franklin Roosevelt,the U.S. president who summered on the island.

The graduates don't all identify with the same country.

"I consider myself more American," Ashby said. "I always carry American money. I'm going to an American school. I do everything American."

"I describe myself as half," said fellow grad Stefan Mitchell."My mother's from Lubec, just over the bridge. And Dad's from here."

"Canadian," said Brendan Allingham. "It's where I was born and where I live."

Whatever side the graduateschoose, it's likely to be away from the island.

Although Allingham's mother, Kelly Tinker, danced on Campobello on her own prom night, she's not encouraging him to stay.

"I hope he doesn't live here," Tinker said. "It's a nice place to grow up, but there's more other places. Campobello is just getting smaller and smaller. There's really nothing here."

Rhonda Cook isn't encouraging her son Nick to stay on the island either.

"There's bigger things out there in the world, than on Campobello,"Cook said. "We want that for him, but he knows home is here. So we certainly want him to come back and visit."