Video Essay Content Winner
Amaya Fischer from Nampa, ID is the winner of the 2023 President's Scholarship Recognition Video Essay Content to earn an additional scholarship. She answered the question: "What is one thing you are very passionate about that you do not get to talk about enough? Why is it so important to you?" Congratulations, Amaya!
Video Essay Content Winner
Magdalen Toeckes from Power, Montana is the winner of the 2023 President's Scholarship Recognition Written Essay Content to earn an additional scholarship. She answered the question: "You are required to spend the next year of your life in either the past or the future. What year would you travel to and why?" Congratulations, Magdelen!
Transcending Time
It was August 23, 2022, the last day of summer break before I would begin my senior year of high school. I went with my mom to my grandparent’s ranch, the Rocking Z and once there I loaded my painting supplies into Grandpa’s side-by-side. My Grandma drove us up the lower valley road and then turned off into where they kept hay stacked at the foot of the steep hill blanketed with sagebrush and pine trees to the left of the road. It was a beautiful hot day with no wind and clear blue skies. Following a cattle trail up the side of the steep hill, we drove until we reached a rise where the ground was somewhat flat before the hill climbed up higher and there I saw perched on the side of the hill, barely standing from all appearances, was a small one room cabin with open gaps where the door and window had been. The cabin was only about eight by sixteen feet and had no chimney although rusty parts of one were scattered on the hill below it. Between myself and the cabin were tall aspens huddled around the small spring that trickled there. Grandma helped me unload my supplies, left me the side-by-side, and walked back down the steep slope to the road with my mom. I was alone on the side of a hill, no service on my cell phone, just me and the old Fletcher cabin. I picked a spot from which I could paint while not falling down the hill and proceeded to get to work. My grandma had told me the cabin was abandoned after the Fletcher family had debts they couldn’t pay and their cabin was never lived in again. I was painting there for six hours. Six hours of silence, alone, with the hot sun beating down on my back. While painting, I began to think and my thoughts traveled back to probably about 1882. I imagined what it would have been like to be living in that cabin. My thoughts turned more towards those old times and I became more engrossed in painting, it was almost as if I was there...
I was waking up on the cold earth about ten feet from the spring. I had slept that night under the stars because on these warm summer nights the cabin was too small and too hot inside. The sun was just beginning to creep over the eastern horizon but was hidden from my view by the neighboring hill. All I could see were the puffs of pink and orange dyed clouds in the wakening sky. I stooped down to pick up my bedrolls and dust myself off. I wasn’t the first to wake up, my father was already down in the valley, my mother was in the cabin. It was a still morning, no wind blew and I wiped my frizzy hair away from my dust-streaked face and proceeded to walk towards the cabin. My mother was lighting the fire in our wood stove to be able to start frying pancakes and bacon for our breakfast. Looking over towards the stove, I saw my mother hadn’t fetched water yet this morning and so I grabbed up the bucket. It was easier to stay awake outside with the sounds of the birds calling and the cool morning air on my face. As I walked back to the spring I thought how remote this place was. I sat back down by the spring under the rustling trees and began thinking, trying to wake up. My mother often reminisced about the bustling, busy city streets of the east. But, I had never seen those streets and yet, I imagined those cities had started out like this. Just a few people setting out to build a life for themselves. I was part of that story now. I too was going to make a place for myself and with determination, I shook the sleep from my head and started to draw water. I liked the open landscape about me, the drama and majesty it held. I hurried back to the cabin lugging the full bucket of sloshing water back with me. I was ready to tackle the day now and eager to get on with my work.
I then called myself back to the present as a wind was beginning to pick up and was blowing ominous gray clouds to cover the blue sky above me. My painting finished, I started to pack up and load the supplies back into the side-by-side. My thoughts didn’t leave me though. The life the Fletcher family had hoped to build on that spot was gone, their cabin abandoned with remnants of their past life scattered down the hill below them. Despite the desolation, the idea of what they had done appealed to me. They had set out in a new place to build a life for themselves. I realized I had a bit of that same desire within myself. I wanted to create something in my life, I didn’t know how or what exactly. The desire to create, given to me and to all humankind by the Creator, is a gift, one that should not lay dormant in our hearts but should be used. As an artist, I want to strive to imitate the perfection I see in creation and to tell the stories of the life that has dwelt on this earth through my art. Getting into the side-by-side and turning the key I sighed. Time to tackle this last year of highschool I thought. As I started to make my way down the steep hill and the first raindrops of a summer storm started to fall, another thought trumped the philosophical ones of the moment before. This side-by-side better not roll.