As the school year comes to an end, Emporia State prepares to lose another group of bright minds. As for senior occupational therapy major and Associated Student Government President Ashley Vogts, she will say goodbye to the school she has called home for the last four years.

“For the past 30-plus years, I have worked with many student government and campus leaders, and without a doubt, Ashley is one the most talented peer leaders I have had the pleasure of working with at universities in both Kansas and Texas,” said President Michael Shonrock.

After graduation Vogts plans to go to the University of Kansas to get her graduate degree in occupational therapy, a step for which she says ESU has prepared her.

“It is going to be interesting and fun,” Vogts said. “It is a three year program and is going to be a whole new chapter of my life.”

Vogts said she has made lasting friendships and still stays in touch with the girls she met in her first year while living in the Towers Residential Complex.

“I lived on an all-girls floor, and we became super fast friends,” Vogts said. “We still get together a couple times a month because we all kind of split into different departments. It has just been a great four years, and I tell people all the time if I could make a career out of staying at Emporia State I would.”

Vogts, a second-generation Hornet, said her mother’s stories about ESU helped make the decision to come here an easy one.

“I didn’t even look anywhere else, it just felt right,” Vogts said. “I have had so many opportunities and experiences here, and I know I couldn’t have done it if I wouldn’t have come to Emporia State.”

With all the added responsibilities of being a senior, Vogts still managed to take on the task of ASG president, a position that ASG vice president and senior marketing major Jennifer Cheray talked her into.

“She was supposed to go to KU this year, so her plans were kind of up in the air for a long time,” Cheray said. “We didn’t think it was going to happen, but we just rolled with it and it came together.”

Vogts said she is not worried about finding a job after finishing college with the education she has received from ESU and the career she has chosen.

“She is exceptional and will continue to excel in her graduate studies at the University of Kansas,” Shonrock said.

Rocky Robinson