PANAMA CITY — Jessie King plans to attend the University of Florida to study music and medicine.
And the Bay High senior, who wears her blond hair in bangs and frequently has a self-effacing laugh, will be able to do so after being awarded the Take Stock in Children’s Leaders 4 Life Fellowship. King is one of six Florida students to receive the scholarship and the first to do so from Bay District Schools.
The scholarship, King said, awards up to $10,000 annually for four years in college. The overall amount, according to Bay Education Foundation program manager and mentor coordinator Janet Kessler, can be up to $40,000 for the scholarship.
“They get a Macbook Pro, which is awesome,“ said King of the students who are recognized through the scholarship.
Kessler said the money is apart from tuition and is defined as being used for “outside needs.” Kessler, sitting next to King, said the two joked about how to define outside needs. When King sees Kessler come into the hallway for an interview the two hug. They often chat about random minutia, the rapport of a close relationship clear.
According to Kessler, King came into the Take Stock In Children mentorship program at the end of sixth grade. King's mentor is Samantha Pittinger.
“My mentor is the best,“ King said.
Mentors visit students weekly and eat lunch with them, according to King. The mentorship is one-on-one, Kessler said.
“Sam and Jessie just really clicked,” she said.
Take Stock In Children is a statewide nonprofit in which middle and high school students are mentored toward graduation and earning a college scholarship. Kessler said the Legislature funds Take Stock In Children as a mentoring program. She said parents of sixth graders can contact their school guidance counselor if a student has good grades and wants to participate.
The Asofsky Family Foundation is a partner in the Leaders 4 Life Fellowship. Kessler said the Bay Education Foundation goes out and talks to high school seniors about the fellowship. King was one of 80 applicants, Kessler said. A committee reviewed the application, Kessler said.
Part of her application involved a video self-interview.
“That was an experience,” King said.
While King didn’t find the overall application itself “super rigorous,” the video self-interview was significantly harder. She was supposed to talk about herself for five minutes, she recalled. A little victory lap was taken before doing the video.
“I was freaking out a little bit at first,” she said.
On Feb. 10 King will be recognized along with the other nine fellowship winners by Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature.
“It’s kind of crazy,” she said.
Kessler said everything with King's scholarship has gone by very fast.
King said she wasn’t sure how she will use the money. She’s interested in maybe studying abroad. Her studies seem set, though. She spoke of music and pre-med as what she’ll study at UF,to which she is waiting to see if she will be accepted. Kessler was confident King would be.
For all four years at Bay High King has been in the school choir. Last October she even got to play with Foreigner as part of the choir during the Seabreeze Jazz Festival. King said music is fun but that she can help people more as a doctor. She wants to do something meaningful.
Kessler said the Bay Education Foundation is proud of King and that the scholarship would allow her to graduate from college debt-free.
As King prepares to head to college, Kessler said she’s still the same sweet girl whose head hasn’t swelled, and King said she worked at Chick-fil-A late at night and tried to do her homework.