Hannah

I have such great kids. My heart bursts with pride. God gave Scott and I such great parents and then helped us raise up these three fine individuals.

Our oldest, Hannah, is such a beautiful person. She cares so deeply about people, especially marginalized people. Hannah was recently asked to be one of two representatives to go to Washington DC to represent and advocate for LGBTQ rights in health care. She was selected because as the President for the National Physical Therapy LGBTQ Club, she got to speak at a National Physical Therapy School.

Hannah is almost done with her second year of Physical Therapy School. She will graduate with a doctorate in Physical Therapy. It took Hannah awhile to figure out a career path but I think that is because she is such a free spirit! Hannah left high school and attended Baker University to play soccer. She was coming off of an injury and surgery so it was a tough go. She initially majored in nursing.

Her second year of college, Hannah transferred to KState. She majored there in art education and then dropped the education part and focussed on art. She worked at the Beach museum. Her junior year, she did a national exchange year in Laramie, WY at the University of Wyoming and ended up staying. While there, she got into rock climbing and crack climbing. Scared us to death! She also started working the summers for Americorp doing wilderness work for three weeks at a time. She ended up being a leader the second summer and met her soon to be husband, Kent. Hannah would have to organize all the food, activities, equipment and safety for her whole work crew. They built trails and even chainsawed in the deep wilderness!

After graduating with a degree in art from UW, Hannah lived in Lander, WY where she did an externship in art and worked part time in a PT clinic. It was there she figured out she wanted to go to PT school. So she returned to Laramie and took two years of science and math classes, prerequisites for PT school. She rocked them! She applied to one PT school, Regis in Denver and was accepted! This is a huge accomplishment.

Hannah continues to nurture her creative side while kicking ass at PT school. She and Kent plan to get married in August through a series of four parties for families and friends in various locations.

Hannah is the kind of person who lights up a room. Everyone’s attention is always drawn to her. She lives and laughs large. She is beautiful and stylish and doesn’t give two shits what anyone thinks of her. But she cares deeply for people, almost too deeply sometimes. She’s an awesome daughter, granddaughter, sister and aunt.

There was no doubt from the moment that Hannah was born that she would be a strong leader. She’s had a strong will and been a leader all her life, from calling kids in each grade to start a Bible story club while in 1st grade, to singing at church and in musicals and plays, to playing against boys soccer teams all the way through high school and starting on the varsity team 9-12 grades, to being in student council in high school.

One of my favorite stories of Hannah is the day she watched the security guards give a Hispanic student a hard time in the hallway for being on his cell phone moments after she walked by them on her cell phone and they did nothing. I did get called to the high school to meet with the Principal and a teacher Hannah was going in circles with and also to meet with the truancy board, oops.

I have no doubt Hannah will have a huge impact on making this world a better place.