Submitted by Cricket Hawkins
Mountain Communities
Winter Park
I first met Kayla Davis when she was a Girl Scout Junior in fourth grade and was excited when she received her Gold Award in May of 2019. Kayla’s Gold Award, “NCSD Moves in the Mountains,” involved designing, building, and installing an adaptive, comprehensive obstacle course for statewide use by members of the National Sports Center for the Disabled. This transportable project is stored in a trailer in Grand County.
Kayla is graduating from high school this summer and will be headed to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. Her choice of university and Aerospace Engineering major with a minor in Space Studies, was a wonderful surprise for many of us. I asked her what influenced her decisions and she said: “the movie Hidden Figures.” Kayla first saw the movie at the end of her freshman year in high school and realized veterinary school was not going to be the right fit for her. Kayla was inspired by the African American women in the movie, all mathematicians, who helped develop NASA’s space program in the 1960’s. Kayla and her family also visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida later that year and the rest is history!
I am proud to share that Kayla received two significant scholarships this year: The PEO STAR Scholarship, which is awarded to 880 recipients across the United States and Canada and focuses on leadership, academic achievement, extracurricular participation, and community service; and a substantial scholarship from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University that is directly tied to her Gold Award and high school career achievements.
We are so proud of you Kayla; you exemplify what a Gold Award Girl Scout can achieve!
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