Drew Carlson has been watching other schools’ posts about Illinois State Scholar on social media for weeks before Monmouth-Roseville made its announcement. He saw his friends from other districts lighting up their feeds with the news and thought, “We haven't heard anything yet.” When the notification finally came, the relief was real.

"I'm very excited now," he says, with a laugh.

But the recognition means more to Drew than most, because school isn't something he does. It's something he loves.

"School is really important to me," he says. "I really thrive in a learning environment." He pauses, then adds with characteristic self-awareness: "Not to be super deep, but — the beauty of life is learning new things and discovering new things. That's what makes me happy."

That joy is also his direction. Drew is headed into music education, and the goal isn't abstract — he wants to teach at the high school level first, then pursue his master's degree, and eventually teach at the collegiate level, where he can teach things like music theory. "Which kind of adds some math in there," he notes with a grin, "which is right in my comfort zone." He's currently in calculus, guided by Ms. Jennings, and he already knows exactly what it feels like to receive knowledge from someone who genuinely cares.

"I would never know any of this stuff if it wasn't for her," he says. "I'm just so eager to pass this information on to other students."

Music has been the through-line. Drew started choir in sixth grade, building a connection with Mr. Ferry, the choir teacher, who has given him chances and opportunities for six years now, "and every year it just keeps building." Through choir, he's sung in German, Spanish, Latin, and French. A few weeks before this conversation, someone pulled him out of class because a Latin teacher wanted her students to hear Ave Maria performed live. He went and sang it.

What music has done for him off the stage is just as significant. Starting sophomore year, Drew began inviting friends over to his house, sitting at the piano, and teaching them harmonies. A few friends became more friends, and this past winter, that informal gathering had grown large enough that the whole group went out caroling together through the neighborhood.

That instinct to gather people around music became something more formal last summer, sparked by a leadership seminar he attended called HOBY ILCS, which challenged participants to use their passions to make a difference. Drew looked at the fine arts program and noticed a gap: there was no opportunity for students to do the backstage work — the directing, the producing, the full architecture of a show.

So, he built one.

"I created a program where we did an entirely student-directed musical," he says.

The musical was Come From Away — the story of Gander, Newfoundland, and the 7,000 passengers stranded there after 9/11. The rights had just been released for high school performance, and Monmouth-Roseville was the first high school in Illinois to do it. His brother, a sophomore who had never done theater before, was in it too. "It gives me so much happiness to see him thrive in something he's never done before, but he's wanted to do."

The program is continuing this summer, handed forward to the students coming up behind him. That's the design — not something that lives or dies with Drew, but something that outlasts him.

"I want to make this change that I want to see," he says, "and then leave that change for others to take over."

The key insight from the whole experience is deceptively simple. "It starts with the permission that you get," he says. "All I had to do was ask — and I just had to get the confidence to step up and do it."

Getting to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, wasn't a straight line either. It wasn't even on his list originally. His mom, who works at Monmouth College, suggested it during a drive to visit another campus. He looked it up and discovered that he'd been listening to Luther's choir on YouTube for five years without ever knowing it was them. After that, he drove to Decorah and felt at home immediately. There's one more detail about Luther worth noting: Luther's choir won an Emmy in 2017 for one of their Christmas concerts. "Pretty cool," he says, with the understatement of someone who already knew they belonged there.

Drew's parents will be in Decorah cheering him on, as they've been for everything — every performance, every risk, every uncomfortable conversation. When he was younger, he was juggling baseball and basketball alongside the fine arts, doing what he thought he was supposed to do. It was his parents who permitted him to let the sports go. "You do what you want to do," they told him. "Pursue your passions."

He did.

And for a kid who believes that curiosity is the whole point — that discovering new things is what makes life worth living — that permission turned out to be everything.