The future is full of unknowns and no one can predict exactly what the future will hold. I, however, still have goals, and the most important one is to become a professional pilot. A journey that will be both time-consuming and financially stressful. From a very young age, I developed an interest in aviation. My aunt, who was a flight attendant when I was young, coordinated my very first airplane ride, and ever since then, I have been hooked. It was because of this, that I attended ATP flight school in the summer and fall of 2020. Through ATP, I obtained my private pilot's certificate in September of 2020. Due to the extremely high cost and COVID-19 being at its peak, I decided to withdraw from ATP and move back home with my family as pursuing my professional pilot career at that time was not in my best interest. I now attend the University of Nebraska at Omaha as a non-traditional, first-generation college student and study Emergency Management with concentrations in Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Aviation Administration and a Minor in Aviation. While working towards my goal of obtaining my college degree, I plan on continuing my flight training at a local flight school to work towards my goal of being a professional pilot. A career that requires the one pursuing to invest a significant amount of their own money, time, and effort. All things that I am willing to do to pursue my goal.

Over the last three years, I spent my time as a 911 dispatcher, serving the approximately seventy thousand citizens of our county here in Nebraska. I took all sorts of emergency calls to send help to those in need who are in distress or experiencing the worst days of their lives. Even outside of work, I would often volunteer with multiple different organizations to help benefit others. I took part in building a house for Habitat for Humanity on multiple occasions. In the spring of 2019, I volunteered in a small rural town when major flooding of a local creek caused devastation to people's homes. I even gathered other people to help with sandbagging and evacuation efforts. Now that I am no longer a 911 dispatcher and have moved, I still actively involve myself in both the school and the local community. I currently am leading a group of about twenty people to start a new student organization at our university and I volunteer with other organizations such as the VA in my spare time.

My father, my sister, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather have over forty-five years of combined military experience. The most influential of all of them and the person who has had the biggest impact on my life, is my father, Keith Allen Kelley. After his time in the United States Navy, my dad went on to work for my grandfather who owned his own business. My dad would put in fifty hours a week and sometimes more just to insure work got done the correct way and on time so that the family business would have a good reputation. This work ethic that my dad had become instilled in me as I saw the impact and reputation he left behind in everything he did. I strive every day to be the man that my dad was and still is to this day. Even in a town of about fifty-thousand people, I can run into someone just about anywhere who knows who my dad is and knows the amazing man he is. My dad holds the bar very high when it comes to his striving for perfection and hard work. Even after work, he comes home to do work around the acreage such as mowing the lawn or fields, cutting firewood, or woodworking in the shop. My dad can never seem to stop and take a break. Because I was around this type of work ethic every single day, it shaped me into the person that I am today. Because of my dad, I also cannot sit still. I always have to be out doing something. That something may be school or even working five different jobs as I am right now just so I can afford the things that I have and the education that I am trying to achieve. Because of my dad and his strive for perfection, I also do my best to perform all work I do with perfection. It is also because of my dad that I never give up when things get difficult. I am always seeking a new challenge or something new to grow and learn from. Currently, my goal is to go either into aviation as a professional pilot or into the field of emergency management. Both of which are not very common fields. But another thing I learned from my dad, is that it is okay to be different and if you put in the hard work and stay dedicated, you can do anything that you set your mind to.

Throughout my entire life, I have always felt the need to get things now and to have instant gratification. This desire was in relationships, friendships, food, and everything in between. Something that my grandmother always tells me that will always stick with me is, "Slow down, you are going too fast. You need to enjoy life and cherish all of the little things." My parents even appreciated this and ended up getting a license plate that said "Journey" put on their mini-home. Because life is about the journey! If you always rush through everything, whether it is a vacation or getting into a fresh relationship, you will miss out on all the beautiful moments that life has to offer. All good things come with time and it is through time that feelings and memories are developed. And it is also through time in which healing from heartache can be done.

One of the biggest problems facing today's world is that people do not accept other people's differences. Everyone in the entire world is unique and it is each person's uniqueness that makes them who they are. One example of this is something that I have experienced myself being a member of the LGBTQ community. I came out to my parents in the fall of 2020 and it was one of the most relieving events in my life but It has also brought about many struggles. One of such struggles was eventually coming out to my brother. Although he has had training at his work about not discriminating and accepting people's differences, he is hesitant for me to be open and honest about who I am to my own nephews. He doesn't even know if he wants me to introduce my significant other to his kids. I do not know if he is scared or what his reasoning is but I do know individuals who are not sheltered from the differences of individuals, tend to be more accepting of those individuals. It is the responsibility of society to teach, coach, and embrace people's differences and to encourage those of diverse backgrounds to be a part of different communities. Communities could be organizations, schools, or neighborhoods. If as a society we continue to push away those who are different than us, we will never be able to experience the diversity that exists in this world. It is through the inclusion of diversity that we can learn to accept, welcome, and love those who are different than us.

As a 911 public safety dispatcher, I often ran into obstacles that people normally would not think of. It is midnight and it has been silent for quite some time, then the 911 phones start to ring off the hook. A severe thunderstorm has started to slam the city of Grand Island, NE with wind gusts exceeding 75 miles per hour. I was in a parking garage taking cover, off the clock, because my apartment did not have a secure place for me to go with my dogs. Once the storm warning sirens began to go off, I knew that dispatch who only had 3 people working, would be desperate for help. I made my way home through the way rain and flooding streets and took my dogs inside. Wasting no time, I kept my shorts on, put my rain boots on, and ran out the door to get to the call center. I did this without hesitation when most people would avoid going to work. As I walk in, there was a look of relief on everyone's faces. Or maybe it was because I was soaked with water and they saw me wearing shorts and huge boots. I quickly sat down and logged into the computers and began to answer 911 calls. There were hundreds of them and situations were ranging from medical calls to fires to citizens wondering why the electricity had gone out. I began to coordinate all of the calls and lead the other dispatchers by communicating to them what responsibilities they each needed to focus on, while also providing positive feedback to each of them. I quickly called the county emergency manager and made sure he was notified of the events and because of my phone call, he and other personnel including the deputy director for dispatch and the emergency management coordinator, came into work to help out. It was now 6:00 am and the light was starting to shine through the sky. The storm had passed and I was relieved from my position from day shift dispatchers who had come in early. I was physically and mentally exhausted having just worked an eight-hour shift from 3:00 pm to 11:00 pm and then six hours of overtime throughout the storm. Once I walked out the doors to city hall where dispatch was located, it appeared as if a tornado may have just gone through. With branches down everywhere with trash cans and debris all over the roads. I knew I couldn't just leave everything as it was in good conscience. So I began to put the trash cans back where they belonged and picked up the trash as I did so before exhaustion finally overcame me and I took the time to rest at 10:00 am, knowing I would have to go right back to answering the phones only a short time later.