Nature is God’s beautiful creation. I love nature because I know he created it for us to enjoy. By enjoy I mean to appreciate its beauty, not to take advantage of its resources for our benefit. I enjoy nature by going on lots of hikes during the summer as well as going on trips to see new places during the winter! I live in Oregon where I have access to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and all it has to offer. One of my favorite places to hike near home is the Colombia Gorge on the border between Oregon and Washington. It offers amazing views of the Columbia river as well as diverse ecosystems to hike through. As for my winter adventures, I have gone to Big Bend National Park in Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the past two years where I have enjoyed exploring exciting new places. I have hiked many mountains in Texas as well as snorkeled many bays in the Virgin Islands. Every time I go somewhere new I am astonished at the beauty of God’s wonderful creation. I have another trip planned for Hawaii this winter and am very excited to deepen my appreciation of nature and explore some more of its beauty.

If I could share one sentence with the world it would be “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” Napoleon Bonaparte said that, and I believe it to be true. If you are willing to work hard and stay focused to accomplish your dreams I believe you can achieve them. Successful people weren’t just born special and confident, they make themselves successful. Take Elon Musk for example, he made an electric car which people thought was impossible, then he made it affordable which people also thought would be impossible. And now he is planning to colonize Mars which people thing is impossible, but that man will work to find a way to make it happen, and we should draw inspiration from that and try to apply it to our own lives. If you can understand how to approach a seemingly impossible situation then you can understand how to overcome it.

Change is a scary thing. Being a senior in high school there are a lot of changes about to happen in my life, going off to college, moving out of the house, and finding new groups of friends. It makes me nervous thinking about it, and now writing this essay has caused me to reflect on my past when I have had to overcome the fear of change. In my sophomore year of high school, I was called up to play for the varsity football team. I was the only sophomore in my position group to be called up, and not knowing any of the upperclassmen by more than reputation I was scared. On top of that, the school had just hired a new coaching staff for the team so I truly did not know anyone on the varsity team. This was a large change from playing freshman football with all of my friends the year before and I was not sure if I would be able to handle it. However, the real change happened during our first week of practice when one of our coaches introduced me to the E+R=O formula. The E+R=O formula stands for Event plus your Response determines the Outcome. I took this to heart, it inspired me to jump in during drills and to always make the best of my situation despite feeling uncomfortable and nervous about going against the bigger stronger upperclassmen. In life we can’t always control the events that happen to us, However, what we can control is how we respond to the situations life puts us in. I sure was nervous lining up against the large upperclassmen who were looking to make an example out of me. But I responded, and more times than not I failed. I would get knocked down, shoved out of the way, or just straight up juked out of my shoes, but because I was brave enough to get up and keep on responding I started to learn. I took every rep I failed and responded to it by seeing something I could do better. On the scout team if an upperclassman put a good move on me and embarrassed me I took note of that move and learned to use it myself, and by doing this I started to change the way I saw my situation. I was not some young kid that did not deserve to be out on the field anymore, I was now the kid who accepted the challenge and started to challenge the upperclassman back. As the season went on I started to earn more and more playing time and soon I was a key player of the defense rotating in on every other possession. I was far from perfect that year, but my determination and drive to get better earned the respect of my new coaches and the upperclassman on the team. Now coming up on another period of change in my life I know it will be uncomfortable and hard to adjust, but thanks to my coaches and teammates I learned that it’s not how hard you can hit, it’s about how you respond to getting hit that truly determines the type of person you will be. I know that I will get knocked down and feel like going back to something I’m comfortable with during this change, but I believe that I am the person who will get up and keep moving forward despite any doubts or challenges that come my way.

I have two dogs named Rusty and Ruthie. My family rescued both of them, Ruthie the white one we rescued from Cabo Mexico and Rusty the German shepherd/border collie mix we rescued from a breeder who couldn’t take care of him.

Baseball is truly an amazing game. I started playing baseball when my dad signed me up for T-Ball level when I was three years old, and since then I’ve known I want to play baseball in college. Since I’ve started my baseball journey I’ve made lots of friends and had the pleasure of being coached by some truly amazing people including my dad. Playing baseball has also allowed me the opportunity to travel and explore exciting new places like Arizona and Montana. However, baseball hasn’t just been a walk through the park on a sunny day, there have been challenges and from those, I have learned many life lessons. Baseball has taught me how to deal with failure. As Hank Arron once said “Failure is a part of success” and there is no greater teacher of that than baseball. In baseball, if you get a hit three or four times out of ten you are considered good, but by school standards that would be more than failing. To deal with this mentally you need to be able to admit your mistakes when they happen and have a short memory. In baseball, no one gets on base every at-bat, so it is more important to focus on the next at-bat than to dwell on the previous failure. This is applicable for many instances in life, for example as a high school student I have done poorly on my share of quizzes. But because of baseball I know to take those failures as a learning opportunity and focus on working hard to better on the next test. Another thing baseball has taught me is the value of hard work. To quote one of baseball's greats Tommy Lasorda “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” I truly take this statement to heart. In baseball and life to become successful you need to put in the work. In my life, I have seen talented kids who have had everything handed to them fall down the depth chart all because they did not understand the value of hard work. I have also seen the opposite, I am guilty of having counted people out just to have them turn around a surprise me with new successes. The thing that separates a kid from shocking the people around him or being the guy who did not make the cut is simply their work ethic. In my life, I have been inspired to work toward my goal of playing baseball at the next level, and hopefully, I will earn the opportunity to make the hard work pay off. From the start of my baseball journey all those years ago I have grown tremendously as an individual and gained lots of invaluable life experiences. Baseball has taught me how to deal with failure, the value of a strong work ethic, as well as many other lessons I did not have time to talk about. I am grateful for every step of the journey so far and I hope this scholarship will help me get closer to achieving my dream of playing college baseball.