Scholarship Recipients: Where Are They Now? Macey Mathis
March 30, 2020 —
One of the many fruits enjoyed at The Prairie Club is the opportunity to invest in the futures of our community’s youth.
Thanks to the generous donations of our members, we are able to offer an academic scholarship to a hard-working student-employee every year native to our region here in Cherry County.
This is all done through our Foundation.
“Our desire is to reward our hard-working student-employees by aiding them financially to further their education.
We want to accomplish this by not only granting a monetary scholarship, but also providing the opportunity to work at a club where they can learn, grow, and develop relationships with members and guests from all over the country.”
— founder Paul Schock in the 2016 Foundation launch letter.
Well, it’s hard to believe that The Prairie Club Foundation scholarship program is already in its fifth year.
Five students have benefited from a scholarship and another will be selected this year.
With that, we thought it would be beneficial to you to share an update on each recipient — what they’ve done, where they’ve been, and where they’re headed.
We begin with an update on our 2018 recipient — Macey Mathis.
Many of you may recognize Macey from our Lodge, as she’s been a server with us for four years in our Food & Beverage department. She may have served you a fantastic seared ribeye, or tasty blackwatch brownie.
This past December (2019), Macey proudly graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) with a degree in human sciences with plans to pursue a career in speech pathology. More on that below.
Macey is among the few (and fortunate) undergraduates who never changed their major once.
She entered UNL with a focus on communication sciences and graduated with the same. It’s a rarity to see. Kudos to her!
From a young age, Macey has known of her passion for working with children:
“I’ve always loved working with children, but I didn’t want to become a teacher — that’s too many kids at one time,” she laughs.
That’s when a career in speech pathology presented itself to her.
Macey spent time observing other speech pathologists in various clinics and schools and decided the career was a perfect fit for her skills and passions. She loved the idea of helping children with their speaking.
As of today, Macey has applied to four graduate programs in speech pathology — two in-state and two out-of-state. She has been accepted to both in-state programs and is waiting on the others. What a blessing!
We wish Macey well in her future endeavors. As for her long term plans?
“I wouldn’t mind traveling to a new place for awhile, but Valentine is my home. Long-term, I definitely could see myself settling down here.”
That’s good news for us, especially as Macey starts her fourth season at The Prairie Club this summer.
Be sure to congratulate her on her successes when you see her in the lodge!