MANCHESTER, Ky. — Adyson Hooker is the pride of Clay County High School.
The senior is an academic superstar. She’s a Kentucky Governor’s Scholar with a 4.6 GPA and a 33 ACT score.
She also shines on the stage as an award-winning actress, including the lead role in a Tiger Troupe production that was awarded Chapter Select at the Kentucky Theatre Festival, meaning the show will represent the state at the International Thespian Festival in June.
She’s deeply committed to service, volunteering at over 20 local groups and organizations, including the Red Cross, God’s Closet, “Shop With A Cop”, Adopt-A-Senior, a local homeless shelter and her church.
On top of all that, she’s an athlete, finishing second in the 13th Region in Golf in 2020.
She does it all with humility, saying simply, “I’d like to think I made my school and community a better place.”That community is Manchester. She’s proud of her hometown and thinks her part of the state is unfairly maligned, saying, “There are rural Appalachia stereotypes when people look down on it, but it really doesn’t deserve that. I love living in a community that always supports each other and lifts each other up.”
That support was never more valuable than when her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was a young girl. He battled it bravely until he lost the fight when she was just 12 years old.
She talked about the moment her world changed forever, explaining, “I was staying with my grandparents and my mom called and said, ‘You probably need to say goodbye.’ He’d slipped into a coma, so I never got to actually speak to him to say goodbye. I got to speak at him. It was really hard, I really struggled.”
That’s when Clay County embraced her.
Tiger Troupe Director Donnie Stevens is Adyson’s next-door neighbor. He says the tight-knit small town made it their mission to lift up Adyson and her family, pointing out, “I don’t know if anything can get you through tragedy any better than people showing that they care about you — that they have a love for you.”
That love helped her survive and now she has thrived, with a maturity and compassion beyond her years. And she has valuable advice for anyone else dealing with life’s challenges, “Sometimes all you can do is hold on. That’s better than letting go. If you can’t run, you can walk. If you can’t walk, you can crawl. If you can’t crawl, sometimes all you can do is hold on. Make it through to the other side.”
She loves animals, so her next step is the University of Kentucky, where she will major in Animal Science, with the goal of ultimately being a veterinarian. Spectrum News 1 is proud to award her $1,000 toward her college efforts.
Adyson Hooker is a gifted young person who has made it her mission to give back to her community. That makes her a deserving Spectrum News 1 High School Scholar.