WOW!! Thank you to all our patients who submitted essays to the 2017 MB2Ortho Scholarship Program! We were impressed with the heartfelt and sincere essays we received and thank you all for sharing your creative words with us. Once again, we find it difficult to choose just one winner and so we have respectfully chosen four scholarship winners!

The recipient of our first $1,000 scholarship is Haley Hutchens! Haley’s “If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?” essay was very powerful. Hailey’s superpower would be the ability to give people the confidence they lack. She would like to see people be happy with who they are and not feel like they have to change themselves to make others happy. Haley said it best — “Everyone is beautiful in their own way” — and we couldn’t agree more.  Haley is a recent graduate of Robert B. Glenn High School in Winston-Salem and will start her college career at Salem College later this year.

The second $1,000 scholarship recipient is Sarah Harrell. Sarah is a rising senior at Appalachian State University and enrolled in their nursing program. This explains why Sarah’s superpower of choice would be the ability to know exactly how people are feeling, both emotionally and physically. Sarah realizes how difficult it is for some people to express their pain or describe their medical symptoms. The superpower she chose would “provide a path to the correct treatment plan” for her patients. We have no doubt Sarah will be a phenomenal nurse.

The first recipient of our $500 runner-up scholarship is Megan Dennehy. Megan would use her beautiful smile as her superpower, curing all problems, pain, and suffering. “It is important for everyone to remember to be kind because everyone has their own struggles…even if they are clear to the eye or not.” Whether she is serving on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic or sharing her friendship and love with family and classmates, Megan reminds herself to smile in hopes of brightening someone’s day. This June, Megan graduated from Ragsdale High School in Jamestown and will head off to Chapel Hill in August to attend the school of journalism at the University of North Carolina. Go Heels!

The second $500 scholarship recipient is Jennifer (Jenny) Blackburn. The ability to freeze time would be Jenny’s superpower of choice. Having this power would allow her to “press the pause button from time to time, take a breath, and relax a moment.” As a busy teenager who is preparing for college, playing sports, working, and trying to find time to socialize, we can see why a “pause button” would be helpful! Jenny just graduated from Northwest Guilford High School and will soon be a college student at Appalachian State University. We hope you take the time to hit the pause button and enjoy the beautiful scenery in Boone!