{"id":63567,"date":"2022-02-23T08:05:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63567"},"modified":"2022-02-23T08:05:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:05:12","slug":"fhsu-launches-scholarship-program-with-miss-kansas-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63567","title":{"rendered":"FHSU launches scholarship program with Miss Kansas Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Diane Gasper-O\u2019Brien<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FHSU University Communications<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taylor Clark is grateful for all the scholarship money she has won while participating in the Miss Kansas Organization (MKO) since she was 5 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark, who\nnow bears the title of Miss Kansas, wants other young women to experience the\nsame kind of opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long\nafter being crowned Miss Kansas 2021 last July, Clark decided to try to expand\nthe scholarship opportunities for Miss Kansas participants. Numerous community\ncolleges and a few private four-year colleges have partnered with the Miss\nKansas Scholarship Program for years. But there were no four-year public\nuniversities on that list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last\nmonth, Fort Hays State University became the first institution in the Kansas\nBoard of Regents (KBOR) system to join this partnership with the Miss Kansas\nOrganization, establishing an in-kind scholarship program that will begin in\nthe 2022-23 school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark\ncontacted the KBOR, which sent her to the individual universities. Fort Hays\nState jumped on board immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several\nlayers to the FHSU program, highlighted by a full-ride scholarship for\nundergraduate students \u2013 renewable for three years \u2013 to winners of both the\nMiss Kansas Outstanding Teen competition in March and the Miss Kansas\ncompetition in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfull-ride scholarship will be worth more than $14,000 annually. But the Fort\nHays State scholarship program features much more. It includes $2,000 annual\nscholarships for those who finish first runner-up through fourth runner-up, and\nall other candidates will earn $1,000 scholarships per year. All these awards\ncan be combined with other eligible FHSU scholarship awards. Questions pertaining to these scholarships can be addressed\nby calling the FHSU admissions office at 785-628-5666.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m\nreally excited about this scholarship program,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI went into this\nhoping for a $2,000 scholarship to our top winners. But Fort Hays State wanted\nto go above and beyond. The night I got the email from FHSU with the breakdown,\nI was ecstatic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joey Linn,\nvice president for student affairs at Fort Hays State, said it was an easy\ndecision to join the partnership with MKO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of our DNA here at Fort Hays State University to find ways to promote and support student success,\u201d Linn said. \u201cThe contestants at the MKO program are exactly the type of hard-working, determined, dedicated students we want as part of our Tiger family. We\u2019re excited to expand our opportunities and keep our talented women here in Kansas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark grew\nup in St. John, just 25 miles from Pratt \u2013 home to the Miss Kansas Pageant. She\nparticipated in the Sunflower Princess mentoring program when she was 5 years\nold, and she was hooked. She has competed in age-division MKO programs ever\nsince, with the exception of her first two years of college at Kansas State\nUniversity. She was crowned Miss Kansas Outstanding Teen in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI decided\nreally young I wanted to be Miss Kansas someday and make an impact,\u201d Clark\nsaid. \u201cThen when I won two talent awards at the national Miss America\u2019s\nOutstanding Teen competition, that solidified I wanted to be Miss Kansas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is\ndefinitely fulfilling her dream of making an impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark\u2019s\nMiss Kansas platform is \u201cSound for Common Ground: Music Connects.\u201d She travels\nall over the state and begins her presentation with a musical activity called\n\u201cBucket Beats.\u201d She invites participants to make music with her, encouraging\nthem to talk about anything they want. She then gives each participant a pair\nof drumsticks. Just this last weekend, Clark also started a new partnership with\nKansas Big Brothers Big Sisters and plans to hold several match events with\nBBBS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark\ncompeted in the Miss America competition in December. Although she didn\u2019t make\nthe finals, she said the experience was invaluable \u2013 just like all her years of\ncompeting in Miss Kansas programs. She also won a $3,000 participation\nscholarship and enjoyed representing Kansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark is\nbusy during her last few months wearing the Miss Kansas crown. She has already\nmade appearances at 300 events. After crowning her Miss Kansas successor in\nJune, Clark will finish her last year at KSU in 2022-23 and graduate with a\nmusic education degree in May 2023. She said the experiences she gained during\nher years in the Miss Kansas Organization are empowering and will be invaluable\nfor years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Miss\nKansas program prepares great women for the world,\u201d she said, \u201csetting up a\nlaunching pad to learn the best version of ourselves and learn professional\nskills. The personal and professional skills a person learns through this organization\nare very transformative. They\u2019re not trying to change us. They\u2019re trying to\ndevelop us into career-minded young women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark\nfirst visited with FHSU administrators in January and returned to campus again\nlast week with Miss Kansas Outstanding Teen Gracie Hendrickson, a 17-year-old\nhigh school junior from Newton. Their day began at a local preschool, where\nClark and Hendrickson performed an age-appropriate leadership activity with the\nchildren. They also had time for a tour of campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFHSU\nrolled out the red carpet for me during my first visit,\u201d Clark said, \u201cand again\nthis week. Each time, it was a great day to learn more about Fort Hays State.\nWhat I learned was that they really care about students.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Diane Gasper-O\u2019Brien FHSU University Communications Taylor Clark is grateful for all the scholarship money she has won while participating in the Miss Kansas Organization… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63568,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63567\/revisions\/63568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}