2004
Future Entrepreneur
| Joy M. Longfellow NASE 2004 ‘Future Entrepreneur’ Scholarship Award Winner |
Age: 19Hometown: Farmingdale, Maine (five miles southeast of state capital – Augusta) High School: Hall-Dale High School, (Farmingdale) Class Ranking: First in her class (out of 82), 4.0 GPA SAT Score: 720 Verbal, 660 Mathematic = 1380 total Extracurriculars: National Honor Society (two years), Soccer team (three years – Captain, junior & senior year), Track team (three years), band (three years), Jazz Band (three years), Math Team (two years), Varsity Club (two years), Special Olympics volunteer (two years), Peer Counselor, Prom Committee College Record: Freshman year – 34 credits earned, 4.0 GPA Parents: Walter & Pamela Longfellow (NASE members) Joy Longfellow comes from a family of entrepreneurs and horticulturalists, and has worked in both her parent’s market and diner, and her uncle’s nursery throughout her life. Even though she has helped her parents out, working several jobs at their diner, Joy is, at heart, an avid plant lover and botanist. She has been in and around nurseries and greenhouses since the age of 18 months, and plans on combining her hard-working attitude, mental discipline and her love of plants into a degree in Plant Sciences. Joy will use her $24,000 scholarship to attend Cornell University this fall, where she will put her voluminous knowledge of plants and botany to the test. As a college sophomore, plant sciences major Joy is every college professor’s dream student: 4.0 GPA in high school, tons of extracurriculars, class valedictorian, school soccer team captain, four-year member of her church choir team and a student who could do all this while holding three part-time jobs. “The first time I heard about Cornell was my sophomore year. We had to do a project where we chose a career we were interested in and researched what all would be involved in getting into that field. We also looked at what different schools we could go to for that career,” she said. “Cornell was one of the schools that had plant sciences as a major. It was also one of the best plant sciences programs in the country, and is a leading program, as far as research and technology. That’s what really got me interested in the school. So, when it came time to apply to college, Cornell was my first choice.” Another aspect of her personality that Joy says she will rely on is her religious beliefs. Joy says she attended a local Bible School for a year, right out of high school, because, “I knew (at Cornell) that there were going to be a lot of different ideas and beliefs and philosophies floating around there, so I just wanted to make sure I was grounded in what I believe in and what I stood for before I left to go there.” As a devout Christian, her convictions have led her on several religious mission trips this past summer. At the end of her spring semester, Joy and several members of her church volunteered their time in the Bronx, N.Y., working in soup kitchens and passing out food. She also spent two weeks on a mission trip to Romania, with friends from her Bible College, teaching health and hygiene lessons to young gypsy children. “It is really amazing how much we take for granted here, that people in other parts of our country and the world look at as luxuries,” she said. “Just having the ability to take baths and put on clean clothes everyday, are things some of these people could never do.” |