I am a whirlwind of energy and activity. I hate sitting still. My brothers tease me that if I don’t have homework to do, I invent assignments for myself. When I'm not doing schoolwork, you can find me juggling a soccer ball in my backyard (my record is 1,168), baking cookies with my little sister, or crafting in my room. I organize my bookshelves, run lines for school plays with my brother, or scribble plot points for my next novel on sticky notes that I tack on to my lampshade. I facetime my friends to study, discuss interesting topics, or just have fun together. If you look over my resume, it might seem unlikely that one person can have so many varied interests. Soccer, field hockey, science, theatre, baking, tutoring, novel writing, community service, church, SGA, Homecoming Princess, oldest of five siblings, etc. But it is easy to look at my life and miss a key insight that shapes my worldview. One evening, after soccer practice, my mom noticed that I was covered with dark purple bruises. She took me to the doctor. In the middle of the night, my mom woke me, stared into my eyes and said, “Katie, your blood platelet count is only 5,000 (minimum stability is 150,000). We are going to the ER right now. Prepare your soul to meet Jesus. That’s how serious this is.” I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura — a chronic low blood platelet disorder. The treatments gave me nausea and migraines. I am severely phobic of needles, but I had to have my blood drawn every week for months. Prednisone swelled my body like a balloon. I got a hall pass to leave classes early so nobody would bump me; collisions could cause fatal bleeding. Even my watch left bruises on my wrist. I had to put my dream of playing college soccer and trying out for the school field hockey team on hold — perhaps forever. It was crushing. But my mom taught me to focus on what I could do, rather than what I couldn’t. So, I took up no-impact activities like knitting and baking. I tried out for a community play and landed the leading role. I coached little kids at FCA sports camp. I finished writing a novel. And I didn’t miss one school assignment. My middle school was so impressed by my performance under the circumstances that they gave me the Perseverance Award. Right before field hockey tryouts, God heard the prayers of my community and miraculously raised my platelets just high enough to participate in contact sports again — and just in time to make my high school team. In 2020, I watched the entire world halt. But I remembered how I never stopped innovating to keep myself moving forward. Instead of live sports practices, I had virtual training with my teams. It helped me stay fit, healthy, and grow in my abilities as a leader and athlete. In 2021, I was voted field hockey Captain, and 2nd Team All-District twice. My friend and I created the first ever Baking Club at my high school. As Vice President, I grew the community from three students to over two hundred! And with sports cancelling, I acted in two online high school plays, and this winter I performed a lead role live. Today, I’m choosing to apply to your scholarship. Regardless of your decision, or my ITP, I will choose to live each day to the full and bless as many people as possible, like Jesus teaches in John 10:10. Because that is who I am.

When I was younger, I loathed reading. Books with titles like The Red Ball and The Big Door were tedious and boring to read. It took time that was better spent elsewhere, drawing or making friends or learning. However, at my school, we had thirty minutes or more of mandatory reading time, to build our skills. In third grade, I searched for a book at my house, hopefully interesting enough to keep me from falling asleep entirely during school reading time. One caught my eye. The leatherbacked tome shined, the page edges glittering gold, and the inlaid title glinted. Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. The smooth hardback looked and felt pretty, and it was big enough to elicit gasps from my classmates as I pulled it out. I wasn’t really going to read it, maybe just hold it in my hands. But as I opened the book, the strange names of the fairy tales incited my curiosity. Names such as “The Three Snake-Leaves,” “The Six Swans,” and “All-Kinds-Of-Fur,” of which I had never heard of. Of course, being curious, I read one. Then a second. And a third, fourth, fifth, until I read the whole book within weeks. This one book, with its four page stories, turned my feelings of loathing into loving. I saw books in a new perspective; they could bring one into a different world, expose you to new things, and influence your way of thought. Without Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales at that time in my life, I would have never found my love of reading. I would never have enjoyed crafting my own stories. And I never would have published my own book.