The person who helped my pursuance of higher education turned out not to be my teacher per se, but an educator all the while. My experience with this said person has been challenging yet satisfying all at once. I had to make many drastic changes to have gotten where I am, where I am finally in college and pursuing a bachelors' in the science of Elementary Education and Special Education. I was working for our local Pizza Hut and my daughter was finally of age to attend school. I enrolled her at my alma mater, Bowie USD #14, whose main claim to fame is that it is the hometown of John Rambo. The school had come into a new Superintendent, her name is Wendy Conger. I knew it was time to leave Pizza Hut and when I saw there was a position open for an administrative assistant, I applied right away! I knew that the possibility of obtaining the position was going to be a challenge, but she made the choice almost instantly; as if she knew that I would be perfect for the position. I started working for the school in November of 2019, and by February of 2020, I enrolled at Grand Canyon University to pursue a career in Elementary Education and Special Education. The running personal inside joke is that she is the fun kind of pushy, I never thought I would attend college. I moved from a management position to a district secretalial position in a matter of days and the pay its self was worth it to me. I had not thought about going to college because I was set, making better money and working better hours. What Wendy had done for me was open my eyes to the educational system from the inside view.

My education started off normal, went to a private Christian school from pre-k through third grade then to a public school until the fifth grade. My father had six heart attacks and a triple bypass and decided it was time to leave Wisconsin, so we packed up and traveled to New Jersey where I attended school for my 6th and 7th-grade years. My family once again decided to travel and was homeschooled until we settled in Arizona, in a small town where I attended High School. The teacher that left the most impact on my life was the teacher who I had disliked the most because of her persistence. Her name was Mrs. Vaughn and she was my history teacher for three years. She left an impact on me since she was an educator who was strict, had great morals, and was able to teach us in a fun way. I was not a great student because I was infatuated with sports, FFA, FCCLA, and various afterschool activities rather than the coursework required. When my grades started to plummet, she pushed me to do better. She had gone so far as to have my mother and I come to her house after I finished practice to tutoring me. She had no reason to take me into her home and help me do better, but she did. She stood up for all of her students in ways I had not seen before, and for a long time, I had not appreciated it. When I started my senior year of High School, she had left, and the High School was turned upside down and because of the small population, there were no teachers who wanted to travel, therefore, we were an online High School before it was cool. Mrs. Vaughn continued to help me even though she was no longer with the school. She taught me what it meant to have dedication, kindness, and an aptitude for education. I had graduated in 2014 and was not planning on attending college. I thought I would go to a Culinary Arts Institute in Arizona but since I couldn’t get my act together, I went straight into the workforce as a manager at a Dairy Queen, then to Pizza Hut where I worked for more than four years. At that time, I found that I was not living up to my full potential. I was not happy, but then I found an opportunity I would have been silly to have let slip through my fingers! I had heard from my father, who currently is the School Board President of the school district from which I had graduated. He informed me that there was an opportunity to work with the school as an administrative assistant. I applied and was hired immediately, and fell in love with the children. Approximately two months into working with the school, I was noticing a misrepresentation of the students, and I thought back to my time in school and decided I needed to be the change I wanted to see. I was nervous, it took a long time for me to decide where I should go and to what degree. Telling my father that I had made the decision to go back to school was glorious because he had lost faith that any of his children would attend college. He has been one of my biggest supporters since day one, and I look forward to having him, my two beautiful children, and my husband see me earn the diploma I am working hard to obtain.

My best skill would have to be my work ethic, how to improve that skill, however, is a whole other issue. Once I graduated high school, I was immediately thrown into the workforce. This was never a problem for me because I thought I knew what I wanted to do for the foreseeable future. I was steadfast in the belief that I would be in the food industry as either a hostess or a restaurant manager. I worked hard for so long and would sometimes put my family to the side as I worked to grow within the restaurant scene. I started as a customer service representative, then a short cook, to a cook and dishwasher. For four years I was stuck in that rut, then when I put myself out there, I was made into a server, delivery driver, and finally manager. Working as a manager was a great experience, I never missed a shift if I could help it, and sadly missed a birthday or two of my eldest child. When the work was no longer fulfilling, and I realized I had missed so much of my daughter’s life already, I had made a drastic decision. I decided to switch career paths and work on my work ethic as well as my future. I gained a position working with the school I had graduated from in 2014, started going to college at Grand Canyon University, and have not missed a birthday since 2018. I have realized that a work ethic needs to be strong, but it cannot be all-consuming, or else you miss out on opportunities and big moments. Sometimes, improving a skill means we need to step back and analyze the path we are on and change our ways for the better.

I am in need of this scholarship because I am a mother of two, working full time, my husband is unemployed working as a stay-at-home dad as work is scarce in our small town. This scholarship will make paying for my university courses just that much easier. My personal gain will be the enjoyment and satisfaction I will get from teaching elementary and special education. I am doing this not only for my personal gain but familial. I am the first of my father's five children to attend college and I intend to be the first college graduate as well. Not only am I going to achieve this goal but I am going to prove that hard work is worth it to my children. I stay up late every night doing homework, wake up early to nurse my newborn, play, and teach my eldest to cook (she is 5). I am working so hard so I may be the best I can be, but financially it is a challenge. Without the dual-income that we once had, every penny is used for the children, food, college, gas, and basic utilities.

When I was a child, my parents pulled my brother and me out of school in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and we became travelers. It was a great experience, I was able to see forty-six out of the fifty states, learned from new people everywhere we went, and never had felt as though I was alone. I have met people from big cities to small towns, and eventually landed in the infamous small hometown of John Rambo! My goals in life are to be the best version of myself that I can be, and that includes a lot of hard work to get to where I want to be. I decided, after working for a school district, that I was going to pursue a career in education. Specifically that of Special Education. I have seen how underrepresented these exceptional children are in my rural home and want nothing more than to be there and educate. I wish to be the person that they look back and fondly state, "that teacher was tough, but I learned a lot from her" as I have countless times. To achieve my goal, I am currently working in that same small Rambo town of Bowie, Arizona as a Secretary until my education allows me to enter the classroom. I am attending Grand Canyon University and am the first one in my family to pursue any secondary education. To give back to others and this community of mine, I am actively working with youth to restore our beautiful little town. I live twenty-one miles away, but work and spend the majority of my time in Bowie with my students, their families, and my family. I am a member of my local Rotary Club and a youth pastor at my fathers' church. I have done work with my community and countless others, such as joining the Sierra Service Project. Through that experience, I had gone to the small native town of Tes Nos Pas by the four corners to fix roofs and even to Los Angeles to fix homes and clean up neighborhoods. I would not want to climb onto another roof, for the fear of stepping through, but I would have those experiences again and share them with tomorrow's leaders.