Page 23 of It Started with a Sunset
And then, as she was talking to the crowd and connecting with them, he couldn’t help but think—again—about their dinner earlier in the week and how she’d ended the night so quickly. He’d been just about to ask her if she wanted to take a walk down Main Street or something so they could keep talking. They had been connecting on a level that he hadn’t connected with anyone in a very long time. Possibly ever. All he knew was that he felt differently about her than he had about anyone else he’d ever dated.
But he wasn’t sure how she felt about him. Since their dinner Monday night, she’d been friendly at work, but she was definitely not pushing to make their relationship move beyond anything other than coworkers. He’d kind of thought she was interested, though, because their hands had accidentally brushed a few more times, and it seemed like it had affected her just as much as it had affected him.
After introducing the event, Summer was the moderator of a rotating panel—they had a representative from each school or college at the university come up to the podium and talk about the degree programs under their umbrella—and she made sure none of them went longer than their allotted three minutes.
Then, before he knew it, Summer was introducing him and inviting him to come up on stage and talk about scholarships. There was a buzzing in his stomach that he was pretty sure wasn’t nerves, which was what he’d anticipated feeling. Excitement, maybe? That was probably it—it was something he hadn’t guessed but probably should have. He’d be doing his favorite part of the job, and he’d be reaching so many people while he did it.
“You’ve got this,” Summer said as he stepped onto the stage, right before she stepped down off it, handing it all over to him.
He was glad that in the “who could give the best presentation” competition with Summer he got to go first. This whole event was packed with a lot of information, and he wanted the students and parents to know all about scholarships before they hit overload.
Plus, okay, with as great as Summer was at doing the introduction and moderating, he really didn’t want to give his presentation right after Summer gave hers.
He looked out at the crowd of eager faces. “Raise your hand if you’ve looked online for scholarships before.”
Most of the prospective students raised their hands. Good.
“Okay, keep them up if you think it’s been a difficult process.”
Most kept their hands up, and a lot of kids looked around, seemingly surprised that they weren’t the only ones struggling with it. A few nodded or held their hands up with more gusto. He figured as much.
“I’ll share a little secret with you. Scholarships available nationally arenotwhere people tend to get the money they need for school. And if they do, it’s very rare. Most of the scholarships people get are local. A lot from your high school or the college you’ll be going to, and some from local businesses.
“It can take a while to find all those, too, but we’ve made it a lot easier for you. We’ve scoured the internet to find all the scholarships available specifically for Lake Baldwin State University students. We’ve also gone to businesses all over the state to see if any of them would be willing to sponsor scholarships for LBSU students.”
He paused a moment, just long enough to build a small amount of anticipation. “And then we brought them all together on LBSU’s site. Raise your hand if you have already applied to Lake Baldwin Stateandyou’ve already been accepted.”
About eight kids raised their hands.
“Okay, now keep your hand up if you’ve already gotten your Aquamoose IDandknow your login information.”
Most of the hands hesitantly went down until only one remained. He let out a huge breath of relief that at least one hand was still up. His presentation wasn’t as awesome if it wasn’t with an actual future student.
“How would you like to go home tomorrow knowing that you already applied for scholarships?” He might as well have asked the kid if he wanted to win a laptop by how excited he was. “Come on up.”
As the high school senior who introduced himself as Dylan logged into the laptop connected to the big screen, Brock took a moment to really look out at the crowd and saw how engaged everyone was. A few were taking notes. So far, so good. Summer caught his eye and gave him a huge smile.
Once Dylan was logged in and the LBSU scholarship page was on the screen, it showed all the scholarships that he, specifically, was eligible for, based on his school information and declared major.
“Whoa!” the boy said. “There are hundreds! I can apply for all of these?”
Brock nodded. “Back on that first page, there is one three-hundred word essay. It’s a global essay for all of them. Some will require other pieces of information, and some will require an additional essay. More than half of them only require you to apply. Now, let me show you the best part. See that checkmark next to each of the scholarships? You can hand pick the ones you want to apply for, then click the ‘Apply’ button at the top. Want to apply for all of them? Just click the ‘select all’ option before clicking ‘Apply.’”
“And that’s it?”
Brock grinned. “For a lot of them, yes. Click on that tab that says ‘Follow-up.’ That’s where you go to see what additional information some of them might need from you.”
A ripple of chatting moved through the room. Most of the rest of his presentation came from answering questions while the kid at the laptop clicked around to check out different parts of the site. They had lots of questions, and he even made them laugh a couple of times. When he was done, the applause was enthusiastic and he was smiling pretty big as he stepped off the stage. It had gone pretty well, if he did think so himself.
Summer got up after him, riled up the crowd even more about scholarships, and then went into her presentation. He was so glad that she hadn’t gone first, or his would’ve seemed dull by comparison. She brought so much more excitement; she even had Baldy the Aquamoose—LBSU’s mascot—join her presentation.
She started talking about all the social events at the university, and in hearing it, he was actually getting nostalgic about school and wished he was a student again just to re-experience it all. She got the crowd involved and excited and so invested in Lake Baldwin State.
Then she showed a video of students on campus telling about their favorite parts. It would start with the camera on the student, then cut to a video of that exact activity happening, the students’ words working as a voice-over.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed something purple and moving, and glanced toward the back of the carpeted ballroom in time to see that the little girl had managed to untie her balloon from her wrist, and it was floating up to the ceiling high above.
Honestly, his only thought had been that it was sad she lost her balloon because it was far too high to reach and would probably stay up there for a few days before drifting back to the ground.
