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Jessica Diane Wolff

Biography

Highlights of Young Scholar Experience: Jessica Wolff has big ambitions ...she wanted to be an architect but she knew she’d need help.  Enter the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and the Young Scholar program.  Thanks to the Foundation she was able to enroll in summer classes at elite colleges in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina to study architecture, robotics, chemistry and other subjects.  “The Foundation has been a big part of my dreams ...without the scholarship, I never would have understood that I had the potential to get into a good college or have a good career.” 

Profile: Right in the middle of Nebraska sits the town of Gothenburg, famous for a Pony Express “refueling station” that existed there in the late 1800s.  The town, founded by Swedish immigrants, is also the home of Young Scholar Jessica Wolff, an honor student at the local public high school and a fixture with just about every community service organization in town.  If there is something going on at the local 4-H, Community Playhouse, the Gothenburg Historical Society, the First Presbyterian Church, or Girl Scouts, the odds are pretty good that Jessica is somehow involved.  Just a few percentage points shy of a perfect 4.0 GPA during her four years in high school, she also was involved with the school’s drama society and other extracurricular activities. 

Inspiration: The individuals who influenced Jessica the most were her 7^th and 9^th grade science teachers. Both teachers (they are husband and wife) were quite strict but “I learned so much in both of their classes, including discipline.” Jessica said she owes a lot to both of them for “inspiring a deeper love of learning and showing me that I had the ability to do well.” 

Aspiration: The current plan is to enroll at Washington University in St. Louis and study architecture. 

Making a Difference:  It is safe to say that when Jessica leaves Gothenburg for college, there will be tremendous void felt by several organizations because of her dedication to serving the institutions there.  “My community service is not something I log the hours of. It is a way of life to me, not an application perk. It is impossible to count all the time that I spend doing community service but I usually spend at least two hours a day doing some form of community service, excluding the kindergarten class I help teach.” 

Accolades: Midway through her senior year of high school she was notified by Washington University that she had been named the John D. Murphy Scholar.  At about the same time she was named an alternate to the Nebraska All-State Choir.  She also garnered “Excellent” and “Superior” ratings at District and State singing competitions. 

Interesting Fact: Jessica said she was singing before she was talking.

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