Kent and Pratt bring a different perspective to school board

If the selection criterion for student advisors to the Cheney School Board highlights community and school involvement, then there would be few better choices than the two advisors for 2014-2015, seniors McKenna Kent and Connor Pratt.

Kent moved to Cheney with her family in the third grade, first attending Betz, then Windsor elementaries before moving on to middle and high school. The oldest of three, a 16-year-old brother and a brother who turns 5 Oct. 3, Kent is involved in Future Farmers of America, Family Career and Community Leaders of America, Honor Society, National Society of High School Scholars and is president of the class of 2015.

As a member of Cheney's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Kent is Laurels class president, involved in the Young Womanhood Recognition group and this Sunday will receiver her "Honor Bee" award, which is an extension of Young Womanhood given to members who give 40 hours of service and assist other women achieve Young Womanhood Recognition status.

Kent said she is interested in the medical field, especially since her father began battling diabetes, and has known what she wanted to do ever since she was 4-5 years old.

"I want to go to BYU (Brigham Young University)," she said. "I want to be a nurse practitioner just like my mom."

A lifelong Cheney resident, Pratt is the middle of three boys, Tyler who is at Washington State University and Logan who is a junior at Cheney High School. Connor Pratt is currently taking advanced placement English, calculus and physics - his favorite courses.

He followed his first love this summer, baseball, by working with the Spokane Indians as well as putting in 40 hours a week as a Youth Conservation Corp crewmember at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. And, back to that first love, played American Legion Baseball with the Cheney Summerhawks AA team.

Pratt is in his second year as one of 16 members of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association's LEAP - Leadership through Education, Activities and Personal development - committee, traveling to the WIAA's headquarters in Renton six times a year to discuss a variety of issues. He and Kent are both members of the high school's Positive Behavior Intervention System, an organization encouraging positive, friendly behavior at school that Pratt helped co-found last year.

And, perhaps his crowning achievement to date, he's a "CHS boy."

"I'm one of the guys who gets to paint up his chest at football games," Pratt said. "I'm pretty proud of that."

Pratt said he has wanted to be a school board student advisor ever since watching brother Tyler serve as one his senior year. He talked to several school board members who encouraged him to apply.

Kent's reasons are a bit more personal. While attending school in Othello, she said district personnel stressed that students should be quiet and not speak up, which consequently led to her becoming quiet and shy.

She found exactly the opposite when the family moved into the Cheney School District.

"Starting out at Betz, Windsor, they (teachers) all helped me to open up," Kent said.

She also has a love for little kids, and hopes to help them realize and find their own voices too.

"They have things to say, but they don't always get to say it," she said.

As board members, Pratt and Kent each hope to bring a different perspective to the directors. Kent wants to keep the board informed not just on activities at the schools, but what students and community members think.

"I know people's opinions matter, or they should matter," she said. It's a sentiment Pratt echoes and expands upon.

"Also, I want to shed light on the positive things that are happening in high school, in the school district," he said.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].