Taking flight—RHS seniors set sights on sky

Some Republic students earn mega-scholarships to enter higher education
 
Six Republic High School students have won prestigious scholarships this school year. Three RHS
seniors have won scholarships to help pay their way through college, while three more, cadets in the
Republic Air Force Junior ROTC program, have won scholarships to flight schools.
Flight school scholarships:
Cadets Noah Tattershall, Jonathan Willis and Nathanyal Hanson won scholarships to attend flight
schools this summer; they were among 200 chosen out of 2,200 cadets who applied. According to
information provided by the district, Tattershall will be attending the Oklahoma State University Flight
School from May 31 through July 25, while Hanson and Willis will be attending the University of Central
Missouri Flight School from June 6 through August 1. The scholarships, each valued at about $20,000,
cover the costs of transportation, room and board, meals, academics and flight hours. Each of the cadets
has the potential to earn a private pilot’s license at flight school.
Noah Tattershall
Tattershall said the process to earn a spot in flight school was grueling.
“You have to take a physical fitness test, (and) you have to take an aviation qualifying test, along with
other various examinations,” he said. “GPA, the principal’s rating on you ... and these (factors) all go into
the qualifications (to determine) who gets ... the scholarship.”
While the cadets will be required to serve with the Air Force in a civilian capacity after flight school, they
are not obligated to join the military.
“There’s no obligation to serve afterwards,” said Willis. “I do believe that we have to join the Civil Air
Patrol; that’s a civilian unit of the Air Force, but they just fly search and rescue missions. We fly with them
once a month. But, there’s no military obligation.”
Hanson said the flight school will help him take a big step towards his career goal of becoming a
commercial pilot.
“My entire career is based off of aviation,” he said. “I eventually want to become an airline pilot. So this is
going to be a major step in achieving that career goal, and it’s an expense that otherwise I probably
would not have been able to afford. Just being that I got the scholarship, it allows me to achieve those
goals in my future. After the scholarship, I plan on attending OTC and getting multiple other ratings,
because there’s many other ratings you have to get to ... become an airline pilot.”
Tattershall also plans to join the Air Force, but hasn’t made a final decision as to whether he will be an
aviator or an engineer in his long-term career.
“I plan to pursue a degree in engineering through S & T at MSU,” he said. “Having a pilot license will
basically add to my resume when I’m going into the Air Force. That’s something they’re always looking
for. Whether I want to be an engineer or a pilot, that’s two things I have open to me.”
For other students who aspire to try for the flight school, Tattershall recommended taking the Aviation
Honors Ground School.
“This wouldn’t even be possible without that class,” he said. “It teaches you the fundamentals of flying
and everything you need to be successful on the test required to get the scholarship.”
Tattershall also said students would need to be flexible in their thinking.
“Be open-minded,” he said. “Don’t narrow yourself to one career path, especially in the branches (of the
military). Don’t narrow yourself to one branch. If you want to be a pilot, don’t just settle for the Air Force.
There are so many opportunities in the branches.”
Jonathan Willis
Willis said he plans to reach for the stars after in his career.
“I want to wind up as a theoretical astrophysicist for NASA,” he said, “but they’re mainly looking for
people in the Air Force; they kind of pull the smart ones from the Air Force. In the Air Force, I want to be
a drone pilot.”
Willis said those who want to go for the flight school should evaluate their reasons for going for it before
applying.
“Understanding your motivation to do it in the first place, that’s really the important thing,” he said. “Like
with the PT test and the qualifying test, that is extremely hard, so if you don’t know why you’re doing it in
the first place, you’re not going to be motivated to keep going when you’re faced with those challenges.”
Nathanyal Hanson
Hanson said anyone preparing to enter flight school should be prepared to work very hard.
“I would ... say to study very hard before, as it is a very difficult test to take,” he said. “It takes a lot of
preparation and a lot of metal strength to continue on that test. It’s a very hard test, (so) be persistent and be strong through the test.”
Academic scholarships:
Republic High School’s Jacob Haralson, Wrigley Cook and Luke Willis have won academic scholarships
to college after graduation.
Jacob Haralson
Haralson, who is also one of only 100 Missouri high school seniors to be selected for the 27th Annual
Missouri Scholar 100 Program, was awarded a lucrative scholarship to the college of his choice,
Washington University.
“I got a merit scholarship up there,” he said. “It’s $260,000 over four years, or $65,000 per year.”
Haralson is also a finalist for a national merit scholarship.
“I didn’t really apply for it, it’s really more of a competition,” he said. “You take a test back in October of
your junior year and then kind of move through the different levels of the competition all the way up to
now. If I do get the scholarship, it will be $2,500 directly to me.”
Wrigley Cook
Cook was chosen for a national merit scholarship at MU, which will give her a full ride.
“It gives me full tuition and fees, plus $10,000 for housing and some other stipends,” she said.
Willis, like Haralson, was chosen for the Missouri Scholar 100 Program, and has also been chosen to
receive the John T. Belcher Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is currently worth $1,500, with the
potential to be worth up to $4,000.
“Every school in the southwest region of Missouri nominates one student to apply for this scholarship,”
he said, “and then they go into a pool and have one student from the region selected, and I ended up
being the student selected from this region.”
Service in the future
Each of the students is planning on a life of service in their future careers. Haralson plans to go to
medical school and become a pediatrician. He said a personal life experience guided him down that
career path.
“I had an incident that happened between my sophomore and junior year that really got me interested in
helping with children’s medicine,” he said. “It was a false alarm at the end. I was told I probably had
cancer, and then it was a false alarm and I ended up not having it, but it really kind of inspired me to
want to go down this career path.”
Cook also plans to go to medical school and become a pediatric geneticist; a person who works with
children with genetic disorders.
“I was really inspired to do that,” she said. “I’ve really been interested in medicine; that’s my favorite thing
that I’ve gotten to learn about throughout high school. And then I’ve also done a lot of work at Camp
Barnabas, which is a camp for people with special needs and disabilities, and through that, I just really
fell in love with helping kids with disabilities.”
Luke Willis
For his part, Willis plans to attend law school, but wants to use his law degree to fight for the
downtrodden.
“I know I want to focus on the fields of social justice and things of that sort,” he said, “and that’s been
inspired by my participation in speech and debate in high school. I got to talk to a lot of people from
diverse backgrounds and begin to understand the struggles and differences of people from different
demographics and backgrounds that I didn’t get to see in my own small community, and it really just
inspired me to pursue this professional goal.”
Career goals
For those who are planning out their career, Haralson said it is important to focus on doing something
that they’ll enjoy.
“I would say just do what you love,” he said. “If you force yourself to take classes you don’t enjoy, a lot of
times you’ll do worse in them. So, try to focus on something you love and enjoy doing, and really just put
yourself towards that and you will succeed.”
Cook said that there are a number of scholarship opportunities available, but students must be prepared
to search for them.
“I would say with scholarships, you have to be willing to seek those out and put in the work, because
they’re not just going to be set in front of you,” she said. “You actually have to pursue them. Like with
national merit, I didn’t even know that it was a thing. It was actually my mom who knew about it and got
me signed up to take the tests, so you just have to be willing to put in the work and look for those
opportunities.”
Willis had two pieces of advice for underclassmen. The first one, he said, was to “specialize” their high
school experience.
“You don’t need to overload yourself by doing every single activity possible,” he said, “but if there is one,
two or three things that you absolutely love and are good at, definitely focus on those, because from my
experiences, at least, colleges and scholarships really enjoy seeing specialization, especially when it
applies to the career field you’re going into, so that was kind of speech and debate for me.”
Willis’s second piece of advice was to be prepared for rejection when applying for schools and
scholarships.
“You’re not going to get every single one you apply to,” he said, “so you kind of have to have a really
strong work ethic to apply for a lot of them to get a select few that are going to help you get where you
want to go.”