Emery Hagan has plenty of accolades: She’s the class vice president, a two-sport athlete, and she’s put in more than 200 volunteer hours.
But in her own words – the most compelling case for her candidacy for the Taylor Haugen Trophy comes from the bottom of the fifth page of her application. Under her dad’s name, she leaves the field for a second parent blank.
Hagan was born to a family of all boys. “My mom had always wanted a little girl. She tragically lost her mother when she was a few years old, causing her to forever yearn for a baby girl of her own to heal from her childhood lacking a mother figure,” she wrote in her application.
Her mother was a teacher who she credits with teaching her how to treat everyone with “the utmost kindness – as I may never know what they go home to each day.”
Hagan had to lean on those lessons being taught to others when she was in fith grade and unexpectedly lost her mother. Hours after learning of her mother’s death, she says her fifth grade teacher showed up to her house to console her – letting Hagan see firsthand how important her mom’s credo could be when others did it for her in her life.
Because of role models like Mrs. Moore, Hagan learned to use the tools her mother had to help others and her own experiences to be a light to others.
“Almost half of my childhood has been spent lacking a mother figure, but I am forever grateful to have shared the time we did,” Hagan concluded in her application, “I pray that I never stray from what she has instilled in me. As she always said, you may never know what a person may be going through. Always be the good in their day. Sometimes their life, their sanity, their safety depends on it. May her love and kindness forever live through me.”
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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