The day after I interviewed Kylie Higgs, she was in La Grange, Texas, getting ready to climb a power pole.

This requires some explaining. Kylie rodeos — has for years, alongside her sister Aleah, who appeared in this same publication wearing a jacket and belt buckle that Craig still remembered vividly when Kylie sat down across from him. Through the Illinois High School Rodeo program, Kylie applied for and was accepted to the Quanta High School Rodeo Team — a Texas-based organization of 50 members that combines rodeo with trades training: lineman work, welding, skilled trades of all kinds. They travel all over America. They were bringing the team to their ranch in La Grange. Kylie would be climbing poles. They'd provide the equipment.

"You're going to climb poles in La Grange, Texas? Is this a function of rodeoing that I don't know about?" Craig asked. She confirmed she was. Tomorrow.

She forgot to mention it during the 17-minute interview. Which tells you something about Kylie Higgs — there's more going on than she naturally leads with.

She's a senior at Newton Community High School, an Illinois State Scholar, and one of nine students in her class to earn that distinction. She came from St. Thomas Catholic School — small class, same kids all day — and her sister Aleah prepared her for the transition to Newton: "The hallways are going to be busy — Just be prepared." Kylie describes herself as a 7 on the 0-to-10 introvert-to-extrovert scale. Measured; she reads the room.

Her plan for next fall is SIUC Carbondale, where she wants to dual major in biomedical and electrical engineering. The combination came together through two conversations — one with her father, who works in electrical line work at Norris Electric, and told her she should consider electrical, and one with guidance counselor Mr. Blankenship, who suggested she could pursue medicine through math and science rather than nursing. "I could still go kind of medical, but do it through math and science." That was the unlock.

Math has always been her subject, and Tim Bower is her favorite teacher. What makes him stand out: "He teaches by doing. He'll give us homework and then help us work through it — he does it with us." Not lecturing from a distance, but working through problems alongside students. She also loves chemistry and names Baker as another teacher she'd have chosen for her photo if Bower’s room hadn't already been used.

She spent at least two hours a day rodeoing through most of high school, on top of maintaining a 4.0 GPA and preparing for the ACT. The decision to step away from competition is bittersweet and more complicated than she first lets on. "I think I'm going to hang up the spurs. I don't think that's a tough decision." Pause. "It is. My horse is getting old, and that's hard."

Her mother is a nurse in oncology at Effingham — one of nine siblings, middle of the pack, no breaks. "She has pushed me through all of high school to keep good grades, keep my 4.0. She carrot-sticked me." Craig's response: "That's a big heart," referring to her mother's oncology work. Kylie agreed simply. Her father's career in electrical infrastructure provided a different kind of example. Between the two of them, she grew up watching people who showed up and did the hard thing.

Her siblings are scattered across Illinois: the 20-year-old sister Aleah at SIUE studying speech pathology; the twin sister who trained in sonography through OCC and Kaskaskia and now works at OSF Saint Francis in Bloomington; the twin brother at EJ Water, the local water company.

The family has been in Jasper County for generations. Craig noted it: "They've been here since dirt. That's a hard thing to leave." Kylie's answer: She'll go wherever her career takes her. She doesn't know where yet. She's not in a rush to find out in advance.

"It's a little scary," she said of the future. "But I'm ready to see where it takes me."

The next morning, she was in Texas, strapping on borrowed equipment, about to climb a pole.