"People in St. Petersburg and Gulfport don’t know we’re here, but around the world they do."

Brianna Melton is as serious a ballet student as they come.

By her junior year at St. Petersburg High’s International Baccalaureate program, she had already spent four summers training with ballet companies across the country and had narrowed her college choices to a select few.

Melton has since pulled off a dizzying pivot. The new plan replaces college with an online business degree. Since graduating in May, she’s already dancing five to six hours a day at her school of choice — her own.

Melton, 18, is helping her parents run the St. Petersburg Ballet Conservatory, which opened Feb. 5. She’ll be dancing with other students Friday in the school’s first fundraiser, a mix of ballet and modern dance.

Read more at the Tampa Bay Times.