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I grew up in Norman, OK and lived in the same house a majority of my time there. I am the oldest of six kids with an age gap of nine years between my youngest sister and I. I was homeschooled from third grade to my freshman year of high school before starting public school again at Norman North high school my sophomore year. When I wasn’t doing homework, reading, sewing, or hanging out with my siblings, I was at the ballet studio. I am classically trained in ballet and have trained in jazz, lyrical, contemporary, modern, and hip hop. When I attended high school again, I joined the pom team and fell in love with it! My family moved to a small farming town called Inola, also known as the Hay Capital of the World, for my mom’s job. Going from a bustling college city to a town of mostly amish and hay was an interesting transition. I choose to go to a high school in the neighboring town to continue dancing competitively in their team. I quickly found my place at the school and my senior year was elected dance team captain and was voted prom queen.

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I’m not really sure what drew me to attending the University of Arkansas. My cousin was a Freshman here in 2020 and absolutely loved and would always talk so highly of it at family functions. I am a spiritual/religious person and when trying to figure out where I needed to I prayed and I just knew. I had never seen the campus and I didn’t know anyone who was enrolled there. I also didn’t know how expensive it would be nor how far away it was. After being here for a year I can see why I felt so drawn to the University of Arkansas! The people here are so kind, campus is beautiful, and my job I got is preparing me for my future career.

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When asked what I wanted to do after in college after high school, the answer always involved me helping someone. After I had moved, I was looking for a job I could do after school and was told that the afterschool program in my district was always hiring teachers. After working there for a couple months I realized I had figured out what I wanted to do. I love working with kids and have had so much fun over the past three years doing it. When I came to college, I knew I wanted to continue working somewhere with kids and applied to a work study position at a community center. At the center, I was working with kids in their afterschool program from the low income-high poverty community. These kid come into the program with lots of issues at home and we get to provide them a fun, safe, clean space to be a kid. Working at the center lead me to find my passion for literacy in children and I will be completing my honors thesis studying it.