1. I deserve this scholarship because I am broke. I am also trying to prove a point to my English teacher that I can in fact get scholarships past May 1st. Help me prove shawty Mrs. Taylor wrong. 2. I hope to do ALL THE THINGS after and during collage. I am studying to be a History teacher and a park ranger, living in a national park this has been a dream for a while. However I also aspire to be a general practice pediatrician to help kids stuck in health situations like myself. On top of this I also have collage credits it multiple media programs and I hope to work for a nature photography magazine as a photographer/ writer. 3. Oh boy. Gluten. I LOVE BREAD, I mean LOVE bread. I was told during my biggest depression that I could no longer eat gluten. Now I have been through a lot, living in poverty and such, but being denied bread was my biggest life obstacle.

To be a West Virginian, means to be a honey bee in a world of butterflies. Our work benefiting the world, but the world being scared of our sting. Our sting being a defense mechanism, an evolutionary trait gained through resilience. Our people being pushed down by corporations since the beginning. Starting with the native people being thrown out by the government; and when new people came in they were forced underground. Healthcare lacks, and when some of the dangerous work is upon you, healthcare gets creative. This means instead of treating black lung sometimes you must let the chill mountain air clean out your coal bitten lungs; for the mountains heal all ails. The fog seeping in to calm your system as if it were steam to a honey bee, the mountains keeping the bees with a stripped suit. Our mother who bore us stripped by the evils of men, her tears black and dusty. To be a West Virginian means to be a child of the powerful and ethereal mountain mother, who despite our short comings, protects us from the overbearing Mother Nature. Growing up in West Virginia has kept my eyes wide open to the evil of man. They pumped our communities full of opiates, which eventually led to heroin... I grew up with a drug addict father, and my mother came from generations of coal miners. So in retrospect, I grew up with both stereotypes of West Virginia. The thing about stereotypes however is, the stories of these people never get told. Why did that father get hooked on hard drugs? Why has that family been working in the coal mines since they got off the boat? Drugs have recently riddled the spirit of West Virginia, a land once healed by the Earth tricked into pain pills and prostitution. Our people are venerable, and they know that. Years of being forced miles underground, traumatizing our communities for centuries. Not only damaging the people, but the mother who keeps them. Growing up surrounded by hills, rivers, valleys, train tracks, and kudzu; has made me view the world through a particular lens. The men in power are the bears, the mountains keep the bees in its torn up suit, and the people being the honeybees that so beautifully pollinate. At the end of the day, only the stingers can truly fend off the bear.

The two photographs I have selected to submit for this scholarships hold a deeper meaning than one may think. I took both pictures on hikes deep in the New River Gorge National Park. When hiking through the gorge it is common practice to accidentally run into spider webs and warn your companions. When on our class hikes I would go in front to warn of spiders since I am fairly tall, but soon I would see the great beauty in these creatures and their creations. When using the correct angles the intricate webs shine rainbows thanks to the morning dew. Throughout my hikes in this class I have used my camera to light up the New River Gorge in tiny, complex rainbows. I am very proud of my work with this common nuisance, as many see them. Both of my submitted pictures have been published on my vocational schools website at https://multimedia.fitinfo.org/category/photography/.

My artistic vision is to see the inherent beauty in everything. I use photography and drawing to show this, from crude sketches of life's wonders to photography of the things we fear most in nature. I grew up a very fearful child, being afraid of everything I saw. This fear caused me many grievances in my life, holding me back for many years. Living on a farm in the middle of rural Appalachia, I was surrounded by nature of all kinds. Having been stung and bit more than once I was naturally afraid of what the woods contained. Over time though I started to explore the world around me, to overcome my fear of the nature I had to learn to see the beauty in what I feared. It started out as far away shots of honey bees, now I can get in a spiders face without an ounce of fear. Through my lens I have captured the delicate nature of the smallest creatures. I plan to use this artistic experience to further my future career plans, eventually I would like to become a nature photographer. Showing the entire world the small creatures that balance our ecosystem.