{"id":38519,"date":"2018-05-23T07:45:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T12:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=38519"},"modified":"2018-05-23T07:58:37","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T12:58:37","slug":"dental-school-u-s-army-next-steps-in-fhsu-students-life-journey-from-ethiopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=38519","title":{"rendered":"Dental school, U.S. Army next steps in FHSU student’s life journey from Ethiopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Diane Gasper-O’Brien<\/strong>
\nUniversity Relations and Marketing <\/em>
\nLoyalty runs deep for Selam Ball.
\nInspired by a dentist who helped her as an orphan in a faraway land when she was just 10 years old, Ball vowed to become a dentist when she grew up so she could help others in much the same way.
\nThat dream will come true in four years when Ball graduates from the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry in Lincoln.
\nBut, first things first.
\nEven before attending her first class in dental school in August, Ball will complete her time at Fort Hays State University with a busy summer schedule. She will serve as the director of camps for the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science before heading to Lincoln to begin a new venture.
\nJuggling busy schedules is nothing new for Ball. During a nine-day stretch in May, she set the school record in women\u2019s pole vault, got engaged to her college sweetheart, Elliott Carlson; and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in modern languages and minors in biology and chemistry.
\nOh, and two weeks before that, Ball was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army after receiving a full-ride scholarship from the Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP).
\nAfter graduating debt-free as a doctor of dental surgery (DDS) in 2022, Ball will serve for at least four years practicing dentistry in the Army.
\nAll this might sound like life has been somewhat easy for Ball, but nothing could be further from the truth.
\nPrior to her adoption by Mark and Krista Ball of Great Bend when she was 14, Ball faced many a challenge in making her way from an orphanage in Ethiopia to America. After arriving in Kansas, Ball \u2013 whose only language was Amharic, the native language of Ethiopia \u2013 tested at the third-grade reading level.
\nAfter working with tutor Pat Hood, a retired reading specialist, for about five months, Ball had improved so rapidly she was able to start school with her eighth-grade class that fall.
\nWhile she read at the eighth-grade level at the time, she continued to improve and was an honor student all through high school and college. She now fluently speaks both English and Amharic and has taken numerous courses in Spanish.
\n\u201cI was very amazed at how fast she progressed,\u201d Hood said. \u201cShe had a motivation and a determination and a desire to learn. She was a very rapid learner and a very eager learner.\u201d
\nBall carried that determination into high school, where she excelled both academically and athletically.
\nThe 5-foot, 2-inch, 108-pound Ball set the Great Bend High School record of 11 feet, 6 inches in girls\u2019 pole vault, then decided to pursue her education at Fort Hays State, just an hour away from her family.
\n\u201cMy dad and my grandpa both went to Fort Hays State, so they were always talking it up,\u201d Ball said.
\nNonetheless, independent woman that she is, Ball said she \u201cwasn\u2019t going to decide anything until I saw it myself.\u201d
\n\u201cI visited the Chemistry Department, and I felt really confident about the education level,\u201d she said. \u201cThen I visited with the track coaches. I didn\u2019t go visit another school after that. I knew Fort Hays State was the place for me. It has turned out to be the best decision of my life.\u201d
\nWell, one of the best anyway.
\nAnother major decision for Ball back in those early teen years made her think she would be living in an underdeveloped country the rest of her life. She had been placed in an orphanage at age 6 after her father died when she was 2, and her mother and other relatives were not able to care for Ball and her sister.
\nWhen she was 12, good grades in school helped earn Ball a spot with a group of students traveling to America for an adoption youth camp sponsored by the Gladney Center for Adoption.
\nThe students were paired with prospective adoptive parents, and Ball was placed with a single woman who lived in a rural area. Ball said she was \u201cso lonely\u201d while experiencing a drastically different lifestyle from the orphanage.
\n\u201cThere were always people around at the orphanage,\u201d she explained. \u201cEven if it was noisy sometimes, there was always someone to talk to.\u201d
\nBall declined the offer of adoption, well aware that it might be her only chance to escape poverty.
\n\u201cI thought I would never get another chance to come back to America,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the same time, I had peace of mind.\u201d
\nBall was pleasantly surprised two weeks later when the agency contacted her again.
\n\u201cThey said they had found me a family,\u201d she said, a smile spreading across her face. \u201cYou will not be lonely, they told me, because this family has seven kids.\u201d
\nThe Balls, who have four biological children of their own, had adopted three others before Selam. The rest, as they say, is history.
\nA major part of her history is the reason Ball decided to pursue a medical career in dentistry.
\nWhen she was 10, she got a pomegranate seed stuck between two of her molars and couldn\u2019t get it out. One of her teeth began to rot, causing a lot of pain.
\nBall said she heard through the grapevine about a dental ministry in a nearby town. So she walked 4 miles to stand in line at 2 a.m., and the dentist removed her rotted tooth.
\n\u201cI remember wondering why he would want to help people like that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt made a big impact on me, and I\u2019ll never forget it.\u201d
\nLast summer, Ball went on a mission trip with a friend to Honduras with dentists and hygienists.
\n\u201cThat solidified what I wanted to do with my life,\u201d Ball said.
\nAs she neared the end of her college career at FHSU, Ball began seeking ways to pay for dental school.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be dependent on my family anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have done so much for me, and I wanted to do it on my own.\u201d
\nSo calling on the determination those close to her have to come to know so well, Ball began the rigorous application process for the U.S. Army scholarship.
\n\u201cIf she gets her mind set on something, that\u2019s what she\u2019s going to do,\u201d said Randy Stanley, assistant FHSU track coach in charge of pole vaulters.
\nBall\u2019s mother agreed.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s the most driven child I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Krista Ball said. \u201cAt home, we would have to go into her room late at night and say, \u2018You have to stop studying and get some sleep.\u2019 What parents have to say that to their children?\u201d
\nOnly 64 students around the U.S. received the Army scholarship, including Ball \u2013 the lone Kansas recipient.
\nThat did not surprise anyone who knows Ball, including Maggie Denning, coordinator of academic success programs at the Kelly Center at Fort Hays State. Ball worked as a tutor at the Kelly Center for three years while on campus.
\n\u201cShe is so focused, a hard worker, a self-starter,\u201d Denning said. \u201cShe\u2019s a brilliant student and a hard, hard worker. I like to say I hire the best of the best, and I like to hire athletes. They have the best time management skills \u2013 having to balance school with practice and competing \u2013 so they make awesome, awesome tutors.\u201d
\nBall said working as a tutor was a perfect fit for her.
\n\u201cI loved it at the Kelly Center,\u201d she said. \u201cI loved it when people walk out saying, \u2018I understand it so much better now.\u2019 It\u2019s such a sense of accomplishment.\u201d
\nThat\u2019s a feeling the future Dr. Selam Ball surely will never get tired of, either.
\nBall hopes for that same sense of accomplishment this week.
\nHer school-record pole vault height of 3.87 meters (12 feet, 8.25 inches) at the MIAA meet in Kearney, Mo., on May 4 earned her a qualifying spot in the NCAA Division II National Championships Thursday through Saturday in Charlotte, N.C. Ball is scheduled to compete Thursday afternoon.
\nAfter three years of trying to qualify for nationals, Ball made it this year with her school-record performance.
\nShe is ranked 17th among the qualifiers but is just 0.10 meters out of eighth place. The top eight finishers at nationals earn All-America honors.
\n\u201cI think if she can clear 3.93 meters, she could get in the top eight,\u201d Stanley said. \u201cI really think she can do it.\u201d
\nHe didn\u2019t say it, but you get the feeling Stanley was implying, \u201cDon\u2019t bet against Selam Ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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