interests and goals in life,” Kennedy said. “It gives you this community of people to depend on.” As Kennedy joins her new college community, she is quick to give credit to her existing one made up of family, friends and educators. “I feel like it’s a testament to the hardworking people of Lawton — I MAKINLEY KENNEDY When Lawton, Oklahoma, native Makinley Kennedy received an email from OSU telling her she was an Oklahoma State Scholar Society semifinalist, she was surprised. “I honestly I thought it was a hoax,” she said. But she was soon interviewing on Stillwater’s campus for a chance to become an OSSS fellow. A short while later, she received another dose of unbelievable news. “It’s so vivid in my mind,” Kennedy said. “I was on my couch watching TV when I got a text message with a video of President Burns Hargis saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re a fellow.’ I rewatched it because I thought, ‘I didn’t hear that right. That’s not right.’ But it was!” The MacArthur High School graduate applied to two schools besides OSU in playful rebellion of her Cowboy heritage. “My whole family has gone to OSU, so I thought, ‘I’m not going to OSU. That’s the expected thing,’” Kennedy said. “But we bleed orange. It’s ‘Go Pokes’ all the way.” She is studying political science and sports media, with her interest in the latter stemming from a lifetime of attending OSU games and participating in “every sport in the book,” from pole vaulting to cup stacking. During her freshman year of high school, she found an affinity for public speaking and realized she could combine it with her love of sports. “I had the opportunity to be in a speech contest in front of a panel of judges and about 1,000 people,” Kennedy recalled. “I went on the stage and felt so at home. From then on, I knew that when I did sports media in college, I would want it to be in a speaking position.” While the OSSS fellowship will fund Kennedy’s ambitions toward dual degrees, she said the benefits of being a member of the society are more than monetary. “It allows you to build relationships with people who have the same wouldn’t be here without my teachers and my parents,” Kennedy said. “To know that a girl from Lawton, Oklahoma, can do something like this and represent her community in such a way makes me really proud. And it will allow me to put back into others the work that was put into me — to show them that hard work does pay off.” OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 31
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