April’s Fund the Future winner is a 17-year-old from Kenny Lake who has strong opinions and the influence to do something about it.
Monday through Friday, Mariah Doty listens and observes.
But once a month, at school board meetings, she gets to say what she's really thinking.
Mariah represents the Kenny Lake and Cooper Center schools as the student representative on the school board.
At student council meetings she gathers ideas from her peers and brings their concerns forward at school board meetings.
She is pretty reserved most of the time except when it comes to issues affecting students, like graduating requirements.
“I don't know if you can be outgoing and shy at the same time,” Doty said.
Mariah says she sees students struggling to meet current requirements and believes stricter requirements wouldn’t give some students a fair chance at graduating.
“Mariah was not shy at all,” Stacy Stansell, the Kenny Lake Principal, said. “Through these processes she's learned to take her leadership and voice it.”
The people who know her well say she's selfless to a fault. Besides student government and the school board, she's involved in church and volunteers as a big sister.
“Sometimes here time management is something she should work on, because she is so willing to help other people,” her mom Barb Doty said. “Then she'll go help someone after school and then she's up till midnight doing homework.”
In the future Mariah plans to become a family physician and wants to set up her practice back home in Kenny Lake.
