Remember those horrible "What I did on my summer vacation" compositions you had to write at the beginning of each new school year? If you haven't blocked out what you wrote, perhaps you remember making everything up. Nobody could be expected to produce an essay every year that entertained, frightened, impressed or otherwise moved a teacher to award a generous grade. Face it: Some people simply had boring, uneventful summers. Some people still do.

The 10 people interviewed for this story don't have that problem. They went out of their way to do something incredible, from competing in the U.S. Women's Open to rowing across the Atlantic Ocean to even fighting a shark. It's safe to assume this won't be their last memorable summer, either.



So close

On June 26, Morgan Pressel was tied for the lead in the U.S. Women's Open. But then, Korean golfer Birdie Kim holed a highly unlikely bunker shot on the 18th hole, winning the tournament and reducing a stunned Pressel to tears. But Pressel rebounded Aug. 7, when the 17-year-old, top-ranked amateur golfer and Boca Raton resident won the U.S. Women's Amateur.

I just learned so much about myself, and it was such a good experience. I got to meet a lot of new people and play on a terrific course. I learned how my swing could hold up under pressure and that my game is good enough to put me in a position to win coming down the 18th fairway.

Playing the U.S. Women's Open gave me a lot of confidence going into the rest of my summer. Obviously, I was disappointed that I lost, because I don't like to lose. But I definitely did well to give myself that chance. It was like someone walked up and smacked me over the head with a two-by-four, because that hole was so impossible that there was very little chance that I was going to make some kind of birdie. … It was shocking.

As for winning the U.S. Women's Amateur, that was a huge tournament and definitely one of my huge goals going into the summer. And to pull it off, with all the pressure, it was definitely a big deal.

I'm going to qualifying school in the fall and will try to play the LPGA tour next year. The big dream? No. 1 in the world, Hall of Fame, things like that.



Attacking a shark

When an 8-foot bull shark attacked his 16-year-old brother off the Florida Panhandle on June 27, Brian Hutto, a 25-year-old high-school English teacher from Lebanon, Tenn., fought back.

Cape San Blas is pretty remote. We talked about renting a canoe or kayak that day, but we were catching fish in the surf that morning, so we just decided to keep on doing that because the weather was good. I had just caught a fish, and we let it go. My brother and I were talking, and my parents were sunning with my wife. We were 40 yards out maybe. The water was around chest-deep on me. My brother is around 6-foot-3, so it wasn't quite as high on him.

We were making our way back out to a little sandbar. But before we got to that, something bumped Craig, and he jerked back. He hollered, "What was that?" He thought it was a person, like a kid or something had gotten under him, so he backpedaled. I looked over and he looked at me, and then, it happened. The bull shark latched on and rolled him underwater for a few seconds.

I swung my fishing pole. I was trying to make as much racket as I could, and it broke. Initially, I never saw the shark. I saw its tail. I grabbed Craig around the chest and started pulling, but it was on him the whole time. I don't remember this part, but my brother said I was hitting the shark the whole way back to shore. Once we got to the beach, probably about knee-deep, my dad and another gentleman came out and grabbed Craig under the arms.

That was when I first saw the shark, because it was still on him in 2 feet of water. It rolled up, and it was probably 10 inches from my stomach. And I pushed it from the side, and I could actually get some leverage to hit down on it. I hit it as hard as I could, and it turned and swam away.

Once we got on the beach, these women pulled Craig up immediately, dressed the leg wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. They were two or three nurses who happened to be in the area, and they took turns clamping the leg artery. There was even a doctor who came up and asked to see the wound. He assessed the scene, saw the nurses had things under control and then was gone. Mom's take is that a guardian angel kind of came to check things out.

Craig was [airlifted] to Bay Medical Center. Surgeons tried to save the leg, but there was too much damage. Once stabilized, he was in intensive care for at least seven days. His hands were really torn up. A lot of people ask about the [amputated] leg. I don't think they realize how badly his hands got torn up because he tried to physically get the shark off of him. We're grateful to those nurses, the hospital staff and people in Florida.

It's been months, and still, it doesn't seem real. I don't know that it ever will. Craig is doing good, considering. I don't think I could have handled it nearly as well as he has.

There have been many blessings, people sending money, food, cards and prayers. I think one of the biggest things is that there's about eight years between Craig and me. We've never been real close. I'm just the older brother. But now the bond that he and I have, I mean, you can't really describe it. It's kind of like we need to be around each other more than we ever have. That's the thing I'm mostly thankful for. It's awful that it took this to do it.



The ninth X

After spending three years healing from injuries, 23-year-old Lantana wakeboarder Tara Hamilton was back in full force at the X Games earlier this month in Los Angeles. She earned a bronze medal in her ninth visit to the Games.

Last year was the first year I had ridden in three years without pain. I forgot how much I really love wakeboarding and being able to learn new tricks again without worrying about hurting myself.

This year, I learned a tantrum-to-blind, which is a backflip with a blind 180. And then, I started doing a KGB, which is a backflip with a 360. I just love that there's always a challenge because there's always a new trick to learn; like, you can never say, "OK, I've conquered everything."

I'm hard on myself when preparing for the X Games. I was really stressed-out the week before, because I got sick two weeks before the X Games. I had strep throat, sinusitis and an ear infection. I was in bed for an entire week, so I didn't get to ride. Four days before the X Games, I started riding again.

I knew the X Games would be out in the saltwater, so for three days, we took my boat to the Intracoastal. We were there from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. I'd come home, and my mom would say, "You want dinner?" I said, "Can I have it in bed?"

The water conditions at the X Games this year were perfect, which made it better for the riders because we could perform to our top levels. The last two X Games have been my favorites. They started doing live TV, which adds more excitement.

The crowd was enormous this year. I looked all the way down the lake, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, there are people stacked all the way down the whole lake." It's just great to see that many people coming out there to support us and to watch us.

My goal this time wasn't like, "I gotta win, I gotta win." I was just really looking to get on the podium.

I think I'm one of the oldest girls still competing full-time, so at 23, I feel like the grandma of the sport. I mean, it's great that the younger girls are getting into it. I started when I was 14, and coming into this X Games, my mom said, "Do you know this is your ninth X Games?" I was like, "Oh my gosh." I have eight medals out of nine X Games, so I don't think that's a bad record.



Pimp my cruise

In March 2004, Jack Badalamenti was diagnosed with crescentic glomerulonephritis, an autoimmune disease that causes bleeding in the lungs and kidneys. This month, the Make-a-Wish Foundation sent Jack, 14, and his family on a Hawaiian cruise.

My doctor at Miami Children's Hospital recommended me to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. They give you one wish and tell you to think about what you want. It took me a really long time. So they came over to my house, and I told them it was a tossup between having my golf cart on Pimp My Ride and taking a cruise in Hawaii.

Before Hawaii, I got a free week of surf lessons. My wish granters, Carla and Cliff, knew somebody in Jupiter who gave lessons, so they surprised me with that. I got up on the board on the fourth wave.

In Hawaii, we took a seven-day cruise and went to four islands and did excursions. We went horseback riding. We had a beach blast where we went snorkeling, took a ride on a glass-bottom boat and toured a volcano. Then, we went to a luau.

My favorite thing? I'm not really sure. They were all really fun. The whole summer was really great.



Ready to row

Emily Kohl, 23, spent the summer in Broward County, training and raising money to row across the Atlantic in the Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race with her rowing partner, Sarah Kessans, 22. Kohl says the two Midwesterners, each of whom has won Most Valuable Oarswoman awards at Purdue University, are trying to beat the women's record of 50 days and seven hours.

The race begins Nov. 27 in the Canary Islands, which is on the west coast of Africa, and then, it's 2,900 nautical miles to Antigua in the West Indies. As for the training, since the park we're working out of doesn't open until 8 a.m., we basically wake up pretty early and go run on the beach. Then, we go to the park and start rowing at about 8 o'clock and row until the park closes at 8 p.m.

On a typical training day, we row north to Port Everglades or the Dania cutoff canal, and south to Miami and Biscayne Bay. We row in one- or two-hour shifts and use our breaks to call potential donors and sponsors, and keep up with current sponsors.

We went out in the Atlantic about two weeks ago and got into some pretty-rough waves, probably the worst we've seen. We've been in a couple of storms where it got pretty bad with the wind and the waves. But that one day, it was really rough. I mean, it's rough, but we love it. We go out there, and we're like, "Yes! Another storm."

After training, we come back and eat some food and do more sponsorship stuff. We raised about half of the $200,000 needed for the trip. A lot of it is in-kind donations and stuff like that, so we're still looking for that other half. We're mainly concerned with the cash right now, because we still have [to pay] the remainder of the $28,000 race fee and to pay off the 24-foot-boat, which is $40,000. But we're also looking for anything from iPods to sunscreen, a VHF radio, anything like that.

We decided to do this race about 18 months ago. Sarah had read Debra Veal's book Rowing It Alone while interning in Dublin and got so inspired by it that she brought it back to the Purdue team. I was all about it. I was like, "Let's do this." We researched it, paid our first race payment and have been committed ever since.



Ditched the attitude, kept the Chucks

Brittany Fontaine, a mean girl with a penchant for T-shirts with logos of her favorite hardcore bands, was selected by the producers of the MTV makeover show Made to pursue her dream of becoming prom queen at Rivera Beach High School. The show aired in July, and Fontaine witnessed her televised transformation, in which she learned how to make new friends and walk in heels.

We had a premiere party with my friends and family at The Original Steakhouse in CityPlace. It was crazy. There were so many people there it was hard to watch everything. It was really exciting and scary. All my friends loved it, so that helped me. I calmed down when it came on. I was really happy about it.

Before Made, I was mean. I was rude. I had black hair and only wore hardcore-band shirts, blue jeans and pink Chuck Taylors. I wouldn't really try to make friends or even to be nice to anyone, for that matter. I just felt like no one in that school wanted me around, so why should I give them any kindness? My friends outside of high school went to the hardcore shows that I [attended], and still go to. I just didn't have any friends in high school. I figured that senior year was my last chance to make any real high-school memories, and that prom queen would be the best of all.

Prom night would have been just as incredible even if I didn't get that crown. It was the best feeling I ever had in my whole life. I might be too young to say this, but it's almost like falling in love, like you just get this feeling and you don't know how to explain it and you don't know how to contain your happiness. I was just jumping up and down and screaming my head off the whole time.

After the show aired, I received lots of comments on MySpace. I've had some negatives, kids yelling at me that I'm exploiting the hardcore scene. But for every person who doesn't like me for it, there are six who love me for it. It's incredible. I feel like I actually made a difference to these people. Many have messaged me and told me that I'm an inspiration to them. Some have told me that they left school last year, that they didn't have any friends and that they're actually thinking about going back. Kids who do go to school are like, "I don't have any friends; nobody likes me. But I really want to make friends, so this year I'm going to do it. This is my last year, and I'm going to talk to every single person I see."

This is the first time that I feel like I've done something that's made an impact on people. I've grown up big-time. Things have definitely changed. I've learned that it's OK to speak your mind but to speak it in context.

I'm going to Palm Beach Community College now to study graphic design and wearing pretty much anything I feel comfortable in. I dress really conservative now. I have different colored tank tops and little skirts with designs on them, which I feel really comfortable in. And I still wear my Chuck Taylors.



Flying high at 17

Jake Rothstein celebrated his 17th birthday by becoming one of the youngest pilots in the United States. The Hollywood resident earned his private pilot's license and took his mother, who doesn't like to fly, up for a spin.

I got out of the airplane with the FAA examiner. After the whole thing, he said congratulations. He wrote up my ticket, and my mom hugged me and started crying a little bit. I said, "C'mon, Mom, let's go." I took her up for 20 to 25 minutes just for a short little hop, and she loved it. I was explaining every little thing, every little bump to her. She loved it and said she would fly with me again.

Flying has always interested me. Whenever an airplane flies overhead, I'm always looking up and saying, "Wow, that's awesome." As a baby, my first word was bird.

I asked my parents for a remote-control airplane for my 14th birthday. They said, "No, it's too expensive." Anyway, one thing led to another, and a few months later, my dad and I were driving around looking at different flight schools. And finally, we came to Aloha Aviation in Fort Lauderdale. We started there when I was 14. Ever since that day, I've been flying pretty consistently every weekend.

This summer, my flight instructor offered me a job. I did a little bit of this and a little bit of that, running errands, taking out the garbage and washing airplanes. But an hour of work hardly pays for a minute of flying. It's about $100 an hour, and over the last three years, I've gotten, like, 180 hours.

By my first solo at 16, I was confident but nervous. When I arrived, news people were there. My flight instructor surprised me with that whole thing. I [got] to the airport at 7 a.m., and Channel 10, Channel 7 and The Miami Herald [were] there. I was sitting there going, "Oh, my God," but then, I said, "OK, I'm just gonna put all that aside and fly an airplane." That's what you gotta do every time you fly it. You have to zone out and focus on flying.



Tiny bubbles and mock wedding vows

When Tanya Grimaldi was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 8, she went to Camp Fiesta, which takes 8-to-18-year-olds with cancer on trips to Disney World and Universal Studios. Every year, Grimaldi, now 25, returns to the camp at Hugh Taylor Birch State Park as a counselor. This summer, Grimaldi and her fiancé, Tom Fresnetta, participated in a mock wedding attended by the campers.

I wanted it to be something they would enjoy watching, so we made it a Hawaiian theme, and the kids got involved. They blew bubbles at us, and we did vows that weren't typical marriage vows. We made it like, "You promise to carry my luggage, and I promise to do your laundry when we get back." It was funny stuff, so the kids were laughing. And in the end, they all hit us with beach balls. It wasn't a typical wedding, but it's probably one the kids will remember.

I came to Camp Fiesta 17 years ago as a timid little girl. Among my peers in school, I was teased a lot, so going into this camp, I was initially very scared to take off the wig I wore because I was bald. But I connected with a lot of children there who were going through the same things. They didn't treat me different. They treated me like a normal little girl, not somebody going through chemo. That's what I loved about it.

I've come back to Camp Fiesta every year since. Now, my fiancé attends with me. He started, I would say, four years ago. When I first introduced him to the camp, he was a little nervous. He didn't know what to expect, but once he got there, he loved it.

A lot of the kids thought I was a regular counselor until another counselor, Ariane [Kallhardt], and I sat down with the girls and said, "We're cancer survivors, too."

This year was successful. Everybody became friends. There was nobody left out. The campers that I have are about 13 or 14 and have been coming for a number of years, so they have a certain bond. It reminds of me of the way Ariane and I connected. We've remained best friends since the day we met at Camp Fiesta, and now, she's going to be my maid of honor.



Geography and goulash

In July, 14-year-old Jesse Weinberg of Coral Gables traveled to Budapest, Hungary, for a week to participate in the National Geographic Bee World Championship. His team took first place.

We arrived on a Sunday and went on a city tour. It was raining, really abysmal weather. Then, there were welcoming ceremonies. Monday, we had the written test: 50 written questions and five map questions. The next day, we had the geography activity at Budapest Zoo in the rain, so we had ponchos and a blank map of the zoo. They had the zoo drawn out on the map where you could see the lakes and buildings with different pavilions and stuff. There were numbers marked for the big boards where the questions were, so we had to go find all the boards. It was actually kind of fun, especially in the rain.

After they totaled the test and activity scores, it was a three-way tie with 86 points between the United States, Russia and Canada. Other teams were close, too, but in the final round, we got off to an early lead and didn't look back.

After winning, we met the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, and I met [Jeopardy! host] Alex Trebek for the second time. There was actually very little competition time and plenty of sightseeing. We went on a river cruise on Lake Balaton and to an ancient town called Szentendre. We went to Gerbeaud, the most famous café in Budapest, and walked across the Elizabeth Bridge. We went all around Budapest and to Visegrád on the Danube Bend and ate at a castle there. We went to Domony for a horse show, and I won a goulash-eating contest.



Speaking of health

Rachel Louissaint is a 21-year-old Florida International University nursing student and part-time patient-care technician at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. She is also the first Haitian-American Miss Broward County and spent the summer using that platform to talk to students and church groups about health issues.

I've been focusing on preventing obesity, encouraging businesses to offer health insurance to employees and talking about how medical schools should provide community health screenings and pharmaceutical companies should make more generic drugs available.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of overweight young people has more than tripled since 1980, so I'm also planning to go to schools to talk to students about exercising and proper diet. When you prevent obesity, you prevent many other chronic diseases, so the money saved can be applied to Medicare, Medicaid and people with existing chronic illnesses.

I thought that in the role of Miss Broward County I could bring more light to the issue of health care and ways to make it more affordable. I plan to become a nurse practitioner. But right now, I'm in school for nursing. That's my major. I plan to work at Jackson Memorial when I graduate in December. I'll definitely do other pageants and continue my speaking engagements even after Miss Broward County is no longer my title. I feel strongly about helping people gain access to affordable health care.

I've seen people who can't afford health insurance. I see what they have to go through, and I want to find a way to help them.