Katherine Davis, 2021 Allatoona graduate and scholarship recipient. "I believe that developing relationships throughout any experience in life is incredibly important to further your experience, gain new opportunities, and connect with people around you. Having relationships with people from all walks of life helps you see things from different perspectives and allows you to approach any situation with more experience and knowledge. In fact, I believe so much in making relationships that my goal is to go into communications and PR so I will be able to develop those connections and have a cause I am working towards. One relationship I made and developed throughout my high school career that was pivotal to my accomplishments was with a teacher, coach, sponsor, and mentor- Coach Dorrough. She was my psychology teacher sophomore year and one of my favorite teachers I’ve ever had. More importantly, she’s one of the hardest working people that I know, and it was incredibly inspiring to see her hard work carry over into bettering the school community and student body. Not only did she work to make her classroom a great learning environment, but you could tell that she really cared about what we learned and helped her students be successful.  She is one of those teachers that is the first one in the building and the last one out. In what was a thoroughly difficult class, Coach Dorrough made the challenging material genuinely fun to learn and implemented many different strategies to help us. This was very important to me as a student and I could tell how much work was going into her teaching. When someone is passionate about what they are doing, it really makes you appreciate them, which is a valuable lesson I learned firsthand from her class.

As mentioned earlier, Coach Dorrough was not only my teacher, but also the sponsor for student government. Every event, community project, and large-scale study body affair started with her. She truly showed me firsthand qualities of leadership, time management, efficiency, productivity, and constantly amazed everyone with her work. Always going above and beyond everyone’s standards, she inspired me on a daily basis with her work ethic and dedication to her job.  Tasks that took hours and hours were always done ahead of time, in an organized manner, and with a smile. 

The most important thing I learned through developing a relationship with Coach Dorrough is that she always made time for other people, and this is a quality I really admired. Though she was constantly busy between teaching AP classes, coaching swim, and being in charge of Student Government, she was someone that actively pursued making connections with students and members of the community. She emulates someone I strive to model my life and career after, and I hope to maintain a relationship even after high school. As I further my education and career, I will always remember Coach Dorrough and the impact she made on me throughout my high school years." 

Malen Patel, 2021 Pope graduate and scholarship recipient. "A turning point during my educational experience that provided an understanding of my personal goals and objectives was when I moved to Georgia due to family circumstances. I didn’t even have four high school credits and wasn’t interested in furthering my education or simply graduating from high school. I then got support in all areas of my life. My parents pushed me, my counselor pushed me, my teachers pushed me. I realized I had people in my corner who supported me, and who were looking out for my best interest. Figuring out what I was going to go to college for was hard because even though I had people supporting me, for some reason, something was still pulling me back, I didn’t feel motivated. I didn’t want to even to go to college, so I started talking out the side of my neck and picked a random major. After a tedious conversation with my parents, we narrowed down the degree that would make me money no matter what, and what I was good at. I’m great with numbers, so we finally chose that the best major I should pursue should be in accounting. I went from skipping school and almost dropping out to making all A’s 3 semesters in a row, all because of support.'