I've lived in Fernley for most of my life. I have gone to school here from kindergarten to high school. It's a town I love deeply. I love this town and have done my best to give back to it in any small way possible. The biggest thing I do for the community is help teach hunter safety. I do this because I took the same hunter safety course when I was young and recognized how much joy it brought me and continues to bring me. I wanted to be able to bring that joy to other kids in the community, as well as a few adults. I also help with the Fernley High School STEM fair each year. I participated in the STEM fair while attending both Cottonwood Elementary School and Fernley Intermediate School, and I can still remember how much joy I had walking around Fernley High School, looking at all the booths, and becoming ecstatic when I found out I had won an award. So for the past few years, including this one, I have helped both set up and run the Fernley STEM Fair as a way to hopefully bring joy to kids, just as it was brought to me. As for what I am most proud of when it comes to giving back to my community, it is the help I offer many of my neighbors. From helping my elderly neighbors with yard work when they can't do it themselves to last-minute dog watching when my neighbors need to go out of town to simply being kind to them, I believe giving back to your community starts small and begins with your neighbors. I have been happy to give back to them as much as I can. The Fernley community has been incredibly supportive of my ambition to become a paleontologist. From teachers listening to me nerd out about paleontology and encouraging my dream to local programs such as the Upward Bound Program—a college preparatory program that has assisted me in applying to universities and understanding how I'll pay for school—I have received incredible support. Thanks to them, I've been admitted to The University of Texas at Austin. Another local program, called Jump Start, has allowed me to earn my associate's degree this May. The community, through individual people and programs, has offered me so much encouragement to pursue my dream of becoming a paleontologist. I am eternally grateful and truly do not know if I could have done it without such a supportive community.