Top Scholars
December 09, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Growing up in a conservative Mennonite community in Simpson County, sisters Kris and
Sharon Schmucker may have expected their formal education to end at eighth grade. Time and life experience proved otherwise.
“We’ve sort of been different from the rest of our community,” Kris Schmucker said. “Our dad always emphasized the importance of education. That’s one of the reasons we are where we are today.”
Where they are today is graduating from Western Kentucky University.
When WKU celebrates its 164th Commencement on Saturday (Dec. 13), the Schmucker sisters will be recognized as honor graduates.
Kris will receive WKU’s top academic honor as the Ogden Foundation Scholar and will be scholar of the College of Health and Human Services; Sharon is a potential candidate for scholar of the Gordon Ford College of Business.
Kris, who completed her undergraduate degree in health care administration with a minor in business in August, is already working on her master’s in health care administration. Sharon is an accounting major with a minor in finance.
The sisters, daughters of Dan and Esther Schmucker of Franklin, plan to use their degrees to benefit their community.
As administrative assistant for South Eastern Mennonite Medical Aid, a church-based sharing plan, Kris is using her background to help members in 31 Mennonite churches in Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Florida and Colorado to control and fund their medical needs.
“This helps us preserve our culture,” Kris said. “We have always taken care of each other, and that’s an aspect of our culture that we want to preserve.”
The Mennonite community approaches health care differently and pays medical expenses out of pocket, she
said. “Traditionally we would pay 100 percent of billed charges,” she said, but as costs have increased, members of the community are no longer able to afford 100 percent. “I’m trying to help them navigate through the health care system through my health care administration experience.”
Kris also has worked in a healthcare administration internship at the Medical Center at Franklin; as a training and support consultant for On Call Software, which services physician office billing software clients; and as office and billing manager for the Heart Center of Bowling Green.
Both Kris and Sharon credit the work ethic instilled in their Mennonite upbringing with helping them succeed at WKU. The family attends Willow Creek Mennonite Church in Russellville.
“I don’t feel like we were at a disadvantage coming in. A lot of it is believing in your abilities and in knowing you can succeed,” Kris said.
Their journey to Saturday’s ceremony at Diddle Arena hasn’t been typical.
After eight grades in the Mennonite community school, the sisters took different routes. Kris took advantage of an opportunity to move to Kansas to live with her grandmother and aunt while attending a private Mennonite high school. Sharon, on the other hand, pursued her GED certificate locally.
In the mid to late 1990s, both attended the Bowling Green Technical College where they found success and support. “Up to that point, we had no idea we could succeed academically,” Kris said.
“I think the eight grades of education we received were very adequate,” Sharon said. But attending the vocational-technical school provided “the confidence that you can do it.”
While Kris had an idea that she wanted to pursue a career in health care, Sharon said, “when I went to vocational school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
Sharon had always enjoyed math, and an older sister had done some accounting work “so it resonated with me. I decided that was the route I would go.”
After completing the program at BGTC, Kris returned to Kansas where she taught in a private church-sponsored school for three years (1998-2001).
In the spring of 2004, Kris began classes at WKU first as an elementary education major then switching to English before settling on health care administration. Sharon began her classes in the fall of 2004.
“She could have gone any number of directions,” Sharon said of her sister, “but I had one thing in mind. It was accounting or nothing.”
WKU also has provided the sisters with the opportunity to participate in Study Abroad programs and continue a sibling tradition of traveling. The family/friends trips began with visits to Florida and were followed by a train excursion to the western United States. In 2000, a group of eight family members and friends toured Europe for a month.
In May 2006, Kris and Sharon visited Germany for a two-week program offered by German professor Laura McGee. The focus of the trip was the life and culture of Germany. “Participating in the study abroad was truly life changing,” Kris said in her Ogden Scholar award application, “and I have a much better appreciation for my own Swiss-German roots.”
That trip also gave Kris and her siblings the motivation to plan a backpacking trip to Europe in May 2008. “We found out we could do it on our own,” she said.
And thanks to hard work, dedication and the support from each other, friends and family, Kris and Sharon found out they “could do it on our own” when it came to receiving a WKU degree.
“We don’t look for the spotlight,” said Sharon, who has worked for a Russellville company for 9½ years. “It is gratifying to be recognized for the hard work you’ve done, but it doesn’t mean we are better than anyone else.”
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