Class of 2025: Veterinary college names first-ever co-valedictorians

For the first time, two graduates share the same GPA at the top of a Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine graduating class.  

The veterinary college began accepting students in 1980 and conferred its first Doctors of Veterinary Medicine in 1984. Appropriately for a college founded at Virginia Tech after a joint agreement to be the in-state veterinary school for two states, John Kett is from Virginia while Samantha Lannon is from Maryland. 

Kett and Lannon each are awarded the Richard B. Talbot Award scholarship, an endowed award established by Mary Jane Talbot in honor of and in memory of her husband, the founding dean of the veterinary college. This scholarship has grown through investment by Dean Talbot’s son and daughter-in-law, Lee and Patricia Talbot. 

Meet the co-valedictorians

Name: John Kett 
Degree: Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
Hometown: Fairfax County, Virginia 
Plans after graduation: Kett will be a rotating intern in small animal medicine and surgery at the Hope Advanced Veterinary Center in Vienna, Virginia. Kett hopes to eventually become a veterinary cardiologist.

Name: Samantha Lannon 
Degree: Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
Hometown: Timonium, Maryland 
Plans after graduation: Lannon will be a small animal general practitioner at the Animal Hospital of Statesville, North Carolina, and she hopes to be there for many years to come. She also has an interest in volunteering in wildlife rehabilitation.

The path to a veterinary career

For John Kett, it was dogs, For Samantha Lannon, it was frogs.

“As a kid, I was always into all the critters,” said Lannon. “I liked all the wild animals outside. Frogs were my favorite animal growing up. We had a pond in the backyard, and so I grew up loving to watch my tadpoles turn into frogs and holding them.”

Occasionally, Lannon and her father would find injured wildlife and take them to a nearby wildlife rehab center. That’s where Lannon’s passion was stoked for caring for animals.

“I grew up with dogs,” said Kett. “I didn't have any specific interest in veterinary medicine or working with animals from a very young age. But the clinic and boarding facility that we'd take our dogs to when I was growing up, it always seemed like the people were really nice and it seemed like a good place.”

Kett got a job there as a kennel tech — “basically a dog walker” — when he was 16. “I ended up liking it and have never had any other jobs that didn’t involve animals after that.”

Kett started as a government and political science major at William & Mary. But as his interest grew in pursuing a veterinary degree, he added science classes that would be prerequisites for veterinary college acceptance and earned a minor in chemistry.

“I only applied to Virginia-Maryland,” Kett said. “It was my in-state school. …  I've worked with mostly Virginia-Maryland graduates, Virginia-Maryland veterinarians, and they were all just so amazing. So I said, ‘If this program can produce veterinarians like that that's where I want to go.'"

Lannon was more focused on a veterinary career as an undergraduate. She went on to earn a zoology degree from the Ohio State University 

“This was the in-state school for me, and so I knew that if I got in here, I was going to go here,” Lannon said of the veterinary college at Virginia Tech. “Luckily, this was actually the first school I heard back from.”

Academic aces

Both Lannon and Kett found their pre-existing approaches to studying and learning beneficial for navigating the challenging world of veterinary school.  

“When you come into vet school, they tell you that you've gotten good grades through college because you wouldn't be here if you didn't, but that vet school is a lot harder and a lot different and it's going to be an adjustment," Lannon said

But she scored very well on her first veterinary school test and quickly found she was up to the challenge. “I think my study habits from college really carried me,” Lannon said. “I didn't have to change my studying style much because I already knew what worked for me. The biggest change was just increasing the amount of time I spent studying.” 

Kett said finishing at the top of the class was not a goal for him, and he was surprised early in his veterinary college years when his name showed up at the top of GPAs. 

“I always wanted to really make the most of my education and to learn a lot and I always set high standards for myself,” Kett said. “So those things and being consistent translated into high academic performance.” 

Parting words for classmates

The co-valedictorians do not make speeches at the May 16 veterinary college commencement at the Moss Arts Center. But they each offered some parting words for their Class of 2025 peers.

“I'm just proud of all of my fellow students,” Lannon said. “We made it. It was a long journey, but also, it went by super fast. I'm really excited to see what all of my classmates go out and do, and keep in contact with them. We’ll be able to learn from each other as we carry on in our journeys.”

“I would just want everyone to know how incredibly grateful and thankful that I am for everything that they've done for me, directly and indirectly, just all the ways that they've positively impacted my professional life, my personal life,” Kett said. “It’s just been so incredible to work with all of them, to learn from all of them. It’s just been such a blessing.”