Applying for a USU presidential scholarship was easy in comparison to competing in her high school Junior Miss pageant. MaKenzie Martin practiced for the better part of a year — the Brahms piece she would play on the piano, how to walk gracefully in a long dress and high heels “without tripping” — no mean feat at 5’2’’. She studied current events and boned up on civics for the judges’ trivia questions in the oral exam.

The Snake River High auditorium in Blackfoot, Idaho, was packed the night of the finals. Kenzie stood out in her satin orange gown. It had to be orange, her favorite color, because orange complements her optimistic disposition and broadcasts her independent spirit.

The valedictorian of her 600-student high school, Kenzie could have gone to Boise State, or any other school in Idaho for that matter. She picked Utah State University instead. It was far enough away to stretch her wings but not so distant that her parents couldn’t count on her assistance with the potato harvesting.

A spring visit to campus convinced her. The views of mountains were grandiose; big shade trees lining the walkways hovered overhead, sheltering her from the immensity of it all. Logan was approximately the same size as Blackfoot, the closest town to the third-generation Martin family farm, and folks in Cache Valley supported the football and basketball teams during home games with “Go Aggies!” signs painted in their windows.

The four-year Presidential Scholarship offer clinched the deal. An undergraduate research fellowship, awarded after her arrival on campus, validated her decision. She got to work with a business professor on a project that assessed the impact of student evaluations on faculty tenure decisions.

“I will graduate in four years,” promises Kenzie. “Then I’m going straight to graduate school.” She was going to major in business administration but after her first semester she decided to switch to speech pathology. Speech pathologists help children overcome the impediments that hold them back in school and embarrass them before their peers. As far back as she can remember, Kenzie sympathized with the plight of those less fortunate than she is. Several of her cousins mispronounced their Rs in elementary school, and her closest cousin in age was mentally disabled at birth by encephalitis.

No one in the family doubts that Kenzie will meet her deadlines and goals. Once she makes up her mind about something, her mother says, she persists with the same grit that propelled her as a youngster into the driver’s seat of the tractor and ten-wheel truck that transported the potatoes to the cellar. Though tan and muscular from her farm chores and the sports she played in high school, teenage Kenzie still wasn’t big enough to register her presence with the mechanical safety systems on the tractor. A red light flashed on the dashboard panel, alerting occupants to the absence of a driver.

Kenzie’s mother remembers one particular incident at her parents’ cabin in Star Valley, Wyoming. After supper it was the family custom to retrieve golf balls from the creek between the cabin and the public golf course. The creek was roiling from spring runoff in the mountains. Four-year-old Kenzie leapt into the frigid water anyway and started grabbing at golf balls. But her short, little arms couldn’t reach that far, not in that wild water, so she dove in, giving everyone quite the fright until she came up gasping and clutching a white ball triumphantly in her hand.

Kenzie has no memory of this legendary family feat. More important matters occupy her. She is trying to convince her 20-year-old brother Kenyon to attend USU on his return from his LDS mission in Brazil. She’s also lobbying her younger sister, but that decision will have to wait a few years. Raegan just started 6th grade. more