Photo by Smoke Signals

Bailey Wood, GRC Class of 2024

Every kid is taught the same lesson growing up: Work hard in life and you’ll be rewarded.

A theme embedded into their subconscious that they’ll never get out. However, most kids would rather play with Nerf guns and orbeez than listen to their parents’ propaganda.

But there’s an exception for everything. Every now and then, a son or daughter will buy into their parents’ wisdom.

For example, one of GRC’s very own listened to this message and decided to put her head down and grind.

Bailey Wood has been recognized and rewarded for years of hard work — work that went above and beyond the median, work that set her apart from her peers, and work that in the end saw her receiving a hefty chunk of change in return.

Bailey, veteran GRC cadet, has received the prestigious $100,000 Army ROTC Scholarship.

This scholarship is highly competitive. Every year thousands and thousands of students apply, but only a small number of the most qualified candidates get the honor of being selected.

This speaks volumes to the work that Bailey put in to even be considered, let alone win such a prestigious award.

To understand what all receiving the ROTC scholarship means, you first have to know what ROTC members do day in and day out.

In the words of a seasoned cadet, Bailey states, “The ROTC program is a place where you learn a bunch of skills and have a bunch of different things to do. We do physical fitness, CPR training, basic first aid, drones, knot tying, rappelling, life skills, public speaking, along with competitions.”

ROTC is also concerned with bettering the community. They spend a lot of time focusing on service.

“We place flags on veterans’ graves at a local cemetery twice a year,” she says. “We take care of repairing old torn up flags. We conduct parking details for football games and station guards to honor our country and veterans at both football, basketball, and local community events.”

Between the skills the cadets learn and the service they do, the ROTC program takes in high school students and pumps out well-rounded individuals.

By winning this scholarship, Bailey Wood is an exemplary outcome of this process.

But before she even knew about the scholarship, she was already a stand-out character. That’s the whole reason her teacher, LTC Thomas Krupp, recommended her to apply.

Easier said than done; however, the application process was no walk in the park. It took years of hard work and dedication to get her where she is now.

“Colonel Krupp informed me about it the scholarship in my sophomore year,” she says, “and I started building my resumé — joining clubs, doing sports and different activities, building my high school transcript, making sure my GPA was up to par, and keeping up my physical fitness.”

All of this eventually got her to the point where she could apply her senior year, which was in itself a lengthy process.

The first round consisted of submitting ACT scores, physical fitness scores, three essays, a 120-question survey, job resume, high school resume, and also getting two recommendation letters, Bailey explains.

This was just the first round. Up next was an extensive interviewing process.

“During my process I went over to Eastern Kentucky University,” she says. “I did my initial interview with the recruiting officer, Captain Sheaks (Eric Sheaks, GS) where I then continued on and did another interview with their principal of military science, Colonel Plutt (LTC James M Plutt Jr.).”

After this, Bailey was awarded the scholarship. The years of extracurriculars, hours upon hours of staying on top of her schoolwork, and just being a great all around individual finally paid off.

The $100,000 dollar price tag made sure of that.

With this scholarship in her back pocket, Woods plans on attending college at EKU to pursue her dreams of flying. She will major in aviation in hopes of being a pilot in the Army, something she’s always wanted to do.

“Looking out that airplane window seat as a kid, I was just like, ‘I want to do this,'” she explains. “Then my parents would joke and say that maybe one day I would be flying them around. I fell in love with it.”

Most dreams are just dreams. Thoughts and ideas that seem just out of reach.

They don’t become reality until the hard work is put in and action is made. For Bailey, that step is completed.

Her dreams are right in front of her. There’s only one thing left for her to do. Carpe Diem!