Most high schools don’t have any students who become Cox Scholars at Indiana University.

Brown County High School has two this year.

Seniors Madison Martin and Wolfgang “Wolf” Davis were both accepted into the Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Scholars program and will have their tuition to IU covered.

Martin and Davis both received Cox Civic Scholarships, which require them to work eight to 10 hours each week in addition to being full-time students. They will connect other IU students to volunteer opportunities at local nonprofit agencies.

Both of them have already been working while attending high school. Martin works at Brown County Health and Living as a certified nursing assistant. Davis works as a cook at Big Woods Pizza Company and at the original Big Woods Brewery on Molly Lane.

“These are really extraordinary kids who have worked really hard,” Superintendent Laura Hammack said.

“I was astounded when we heard the news that Brown County High School had two Cox Scholars. This is a rare distinction, and for our district to be awarded two really speaks to the work ethic and grit our students are able to deploy.”

In 2017, Makaliegh Layman received the scholarship. In 2016, it went to Wolf’s older sister, Hannah. Harley Rogers received the Cox Scholarship in 2015.

‘It means so much’

When asked to describe herself, Martin starts talking about her jobs. Along with working at the nursing home, she works in the New Life Community Church daycare one night a week while a recovery group meets there.

But like other girls her own age, she also enjoys watching Netflix, reading and going out to eat in Bloomington with her friends. She is also in the National and Spanish honor societies at the high school.

Life hasn’t been easy for her or her family in recent years. Her father, Jason, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2002.

“You wouldn’t know it by talking to her, but Madison — well, all the girls — have had it pretty rough,” said their mother, Kathy.

Despite being diagnosed with MS, Jason Martin was “Mr. Mom” when his three daughters were growing up.

In 2014, he was diagnosed with dementia, and the deterioration was “rapid,” Kathy said. Two years later, Jason had a major MS lesion and stroke which required him to have 24-hour supervision.

“The kids became the parent so I could work,” Kathy said.

Madison and her oldest sister decided to enroll in the certified nursing assistant program at the Brown County Career Resource Center.

“I wanted to learn how to take care of him better at home, to make sure we’re doing it alright,” Madison said.

During that program, students have the opportunity to work at the local nursing home.

“I fell in love with it there. I fell in love with the people and the work, just helping people. … I just love them. It’s like I have a full building full of grandmas and grandpas,” Madison said.

Late last year, Jason was admitted into Brown County Health and Living as a patient.

“I think the hardest part for me was letting him go to the nursing home because I had gotten so used to me taking care of him, and I just worried the whole time,” Madison said.

Jason still comes home for visits, and during those visits Madison said she realizes all that she was doing for him before, “like bathing, feeding, changing, going to the classes, going to work, going to school. I don’t know how I was doing all of that. It’s stressful just doing it now,” she said.

Knowing her dad is at the nursing home where she works is comforting, though. “I know the people who work there and how they work. It’s really comforting knowing he will get the proper care. I know who I can trust,” she said.

Madison continues to work at the nursing home on an as-needed basis, but visits her dad every day.

“Madison deserves this, not only because she works so hard on her straight-As, but also because she is just such an all-around good person. She’s mature and she really cares about all people,” Kathy said about her middle daughter.

On April 4, Madison missed a call informing her she had received the scholarship. The next morning, her phone rang again. “I made him repeat it because I thought I heard him wrong or something. I went inside and Mom was right there. We just started jumping up and down and crying. It was awesome,” she said.

“At first we were in shock and then overjoyed,” Kathy said.

“Financially, I put tuition in God’s hands, and look what he did. We couldn’t be any more proud of her.”

Madison wants to study nursing, or something else in the medical field, while at IU. She hopes to join the Peace Corps or become a traveling nurse after graduation.

“Before Dad, I had always wanted to go into the medical field. My mom has been a nurse and my dad’s mom has also been a nurse. It’s one of those fields that’s always going to be there and it just comes naturally,” she said.

Madison said she was “dead set” on going to IU no matter what and was prepared to work while in college to pay for her tuition.

“It means so much,” she said of the scholarship.

“It’s such a relief. I still can’t even believe I got it and I won’t have to worry about that for the next four years. Everything is covered. … I’m super grateful and I can’t wait to see what I do with the opportunities I’ve been given.”

‘Hitting the lottery twice’

Thor and Steffanie Davis were in disbelief when their son, Wolf, was named a Cox Scholar. Their older daughter, Hannah, also been named a Cox Scholar three years ago when she was a high school senior.

“It’s kind of like hitting the lottery twice. You hit it once, that’s unexpected. You hit it twice, it’s just, everything,” Steffanie said.

“We didn’t think two kids in the same family would ever have that opportunity to get the same scholarship.”

Thor went with Wolf to his scholarship interview. The IU representatives told them that 360 students applied and only 36 received scholarships.

“We tried to be realistic about it and thought, ‘What are the odds that he’s going to be one selected for that?’” Thor said.

One evening early in April, Wolf got off work early and was eating dinner with his parents when his phone rang. He considered ignoring the call in case it was another scammer asking to renew his car’s warranty, but Steffanie encouraged him to pick it up.

“I answered it, and it was the director of the Cox Scholarship program. … He told me and I couldn’t believe it,” Wolf said. “It’s just so much money, and I couldn’t believe that something I had been worrying about for the last couple of years, I finally got it.”

Thor said that Hannah “blazed the path” in both work and academics for her brother. The parents encouraged him to follow a similar path, but they never told him he had to accomplish exactly what she did.

“He put that expectation on himself. From the day Hannah got that scholarship, he was bound and determined to accomplish what his sister did. Boy, he set his mind to that,” Thor said.

Hannah worked at both Casa del Sol and Big Woods while in high school.

The Davis kids played sports as kids, but at the end of their freshman year, both of them decided to quit sports and focus on academics. “They were going to have to make their mark in different way,” Thor said.

Daily routines included coming home and getting homework done.

“There’s no question about, ‘Do you do your homework?’ It was understood from the time they were small that every single assignment would be done,” Thor said.

Steffanie Davis is a sixth-grade teacher and Thor Davis is the assistant principal at Brown County Intermediate School.

Both of the Davis children followed in the footsteps of their parents, who started working as soon as they could when they were teens. They believe that teaches responsibility, time management and people skills — “all of these things that make you a more successful person as you grow older and enter the real world. That was a big push from us,” Thor said.

Wolf now goes to school part time and works for Big Woods full-time.

“I got my own car that I’m trying to pay off, and I think that work is definitely something I want to do so I can provide for myself, and my parents don’t have to do anything for me. Just independence,” Wolf said.

“With this (scholarship), I only have to work a little bit and worry about school most of all,” he said.

Davis plans to go to the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs to study environmental science. “I see that the environment is one of the biggest issues that we have today, and that worrying about it while we develop in this modern world is something we need to do and learn about even more so,” Wolf said.

After graduation, Wolf would like to work for a company or government agency to ensure projects or policies are environmentally friendly.

From the mountains to oceans, the Davises traveled all over when the kids were growing up. “I think that’s a big reason why he’s going the direction that he is, because he cares a lot about the great outdoors and preserving it for future generations,” Thor said.

The Davises describe their son as caring, compassionate and sensitive. He follows his own path, too.

“He doesn’t try to necessarily impress other people. He is who he is and he is not going to bend for anyone else,” Steffanie said.

“Inside of that great big body of his, there’s a really, really kind heart that just makes you feel good when you get to know him,” Thor said.

“It makes us really happy that he has accomplished this.”

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Brown County High School graduation for the Class of 2019 will be Friday, June 7. The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. in the Larry C. Banks Memorial Gymnasium.

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The last day of school for Brown County Schools students will be Wednesday, May 29.

Four snow days were used this year, as well as two eLearning days, when students can complete assignments remotely on their own time. ELearning days do not have to be made up at the end of the year.

School resumes on Wednesday, Aug. 7.

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The Brown County High School Class of 2019 will not have a valedictorian or a salutatorian.

In 2017, the Brown County Schools Board of Trustees voted to move from valedictorian and salutatorian designations to tiered levels of honors starting with the 2019 graduating class. Students will be recognized as summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude — as is done at the college level.

To be named summa cum laude, a student has to complete 48 credits in approved coursework; earn an Indiana academic honors or technical honors diploma; and earn a cumulative grade-point average of 4.0 or above. This year’s class had 11 students recognized as summa cum laude.

Students are ranked after completing eight semesters. Previously, they were scored based on seven semesters.

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Read about the summa cum laude honorees (formerly the Top 10) of the Class of 2019 in next week’s paper.

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