During third period each school day, you can find Brown County High School senior Annika Evenson in the front office during her student resource time.
She works as an office cadet doing whatever needs done, from running passes to students or errands for office administrators, like going to the post office or to pick up lunch.
What should have been another normal day earlier this month in the office for the teen was anything but ordinary. When Evenson walked through the doors of the front office, Jenise Bohbrink was sitting and waiting for her. Bohbrink is the Brown County Community Foundation’s development and program assistant.
From that moment, Evenson’s life changed forever.
Head administrative assistant Pam Bond told Evenson to go have a seat in the nearby conference room and Bohbrink followed her in.
She then presented Annika with the Lilly Endowment Scholarship.
“I started crying, Jenise started crying, Pam was crying,” she said. As a fellow parent, Bond told Evenson she should call her mother Kelly.
“So, I called my mom, she was crying. Everyone was just crying, lots of happy tears,” Evenson said.
Kelly said that through the tears shed was excitement for her daughter. Evenson’s father, Dale, was also excited, pleased and happy for their future college student.
The scholarship is a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to any college or university in Indiana. It also includes a $900 yearly stipend for books. The scholarship is administered by the community foundation and is awarded to one high school senior each year.
Fellow senior Marie Fields was initially picked as the 2022 Lilly Scholar, but has since decided to attend a university out of state and can no longer use the in-state scholarship.
Evenson was one of three runners up for the scholarship.
After telling her family, Evenson made her way down the hallway to science teacher Jim McFall’s class. McFall is someone Evenson considers to be a “great mentor.”
She wants to go into exercise science and physical therapy, a choice that has been influenced in a way by McFall’s teaching in his science classes.
“His classes are the PLTW (Project Lead the Way) biomedical classes and they’re really good, he’s a really engaging teacher,” she said. “I just remember talking to him (about the scholarship) and he was genuinely happy. It was such a nice feeling.”
Evenson and her family lived in Washington state until her sophomore year of high school when they moved to Brown County to be closer to her mother’s family.
Although thousands of miles away, life here in Brown County is not too different from the Pacific Northwest. Evenson said her school in Washington was smaller than Brown County.
Making her home here, she started getting involved in all that school life has to offer.
She played golf all four years of high school and she also plays tennis even though it’s not her main sport, she said.
Her involvement doesn’t stop with sports. In her time at the high school she has managed to take on leadership roles in various student organizations. She is president of the History Club, vice president of Student Life, a branch of student council that aims to get student more involved in school and activites. She is also treasurer of Interact Club, which is a student service part of the Lions Club. This year they did a book drive for local elementary schools. She also a member of the National Honor Society, Science Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society.
Outside of school and off the golf course or tennis court, Evenson can be found working at the Abe Martin Lodge in the Brown County State Park and at Fallen Leaf Books in Nashville.
When her time is not taken up by sports, clubs or work, she also volunteers with the Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Department helping to facilitate events like the Friendly Forest.
Evenson’s father works in restaurant equipment repair and her mother is a patient scheduler for Indiana University Health.
The night before Evenson found out the scholarship was hers, she had almost landed on a college to attend in the fall. She even made plans to put her deposit in for Bellarmine University in Louisville. But the next day, her plans changed.
Now she is debating between University of Evansville and University of Indianapolis.
Despite the change to her college path, Evenson’s career goals remain the same. Influenced by her experiences as a teen in the classroom with McFall and as a child when she would go to work with her mother, Evenson’s dream is to open a medical practice chiropractors, massage therapists and other natural medicine options.
Kelly used to be a billing officer for a physical therapy office, so over winter breaks Annika would go to the office and spend time with physical therapists there.
“I just really like learning about the bio-mechanics of the body and learning how to prevent injuries,” she said. “Preventing goes with fixing. If we do this to the body then we can prevent this from happening in the future — it’s problem solving.”
Someday she hopes to work with athletes and helping them in their sports careers. She said she wants to offer those methods of care, like massage therapy, in a community because it’s an aspect of medicine that often is overlooked.
“We need to heal all parts of our body, not just the internal (elements),” she said.
Five years down the road, she still sees herself in school, hopefully taking advantage of an internship opportunity. She also hopes to travel and see the world.
Looking back on her high school career, Annika said that advice she would give to incoming freshman is to not care so much what others think.
“People don’t care as much as you think they care,” she said. “They’re not going to care if your hair looks weird, such a little thing. People don’t care about the little things. The people that do care (about the little things) care about you, and they’re not going to judge you. You don’t have to try and fit in.”
Kelly described Annika as hard working, loyal, well rounded and grounded in what she feels and believes.
“That cliché of ‘her future is so bright’ — I think that suits her, really,” she said. “I believe she’ll follow her passions, whatever that might be. How she’s going to get there, she’ll figure it out and strive to make it happen.”
