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KU’s Unruh hopes to work with autistic children
   Getting to know the Kansas Junior Golf Scholars

   There is no way working with children won’t have an impact on you. Kansas Golf Foundation scholar Kathryn Unruh has been so affected by the work she’s done with some very important

grade school children, she’s planning, at least at this point, to make a career of it.
   “The past two summers I worked with special needs children in a pre-school classroom and worked with a lot of kids with autism,” says the 20-year-old University of Kansas sophomore from Hays. “(The experience) got me really interested in helping with that. I’ve always been really interested in science and medical research and things like that so I thought that would be a really good way to apply it to something that is important to me.”
   And when you consider Unruh was the president of her high school National Honor Society chapter and she earned a 4.0 GPA her first year at Kansas, the team fighting against autism will soon be getting an excellent addition.

Golf…with a focus on academics
   Unruh says she wasn’t into sports as a kid, other than golf. She learned the game from her father, Stan, who wanted her and brother, Ryan, to pick up the game. The three and mom, Vickie, would go out and play together as “a family thing.”
   “My dad put me in junior golf before I started second grade,” Kathryn recalled. “That was my first exposure to golf, at Smoky Hill Country Club with Mike Akers, who is now (Texas State women’s golf coach). It took me a little while to get interested…golf isn’t really a cool sport when you are a little kid.”
   But Unruh says she played regularly and then, as an eighth grader, decided she’d like to play for the Hays High team.
   “That was when I started taking it seriously and went out to the driving range three or four times a week and played three or four times a week…I started to practice a lot more,” she says.
   Unruh would go on to play for three Hays squads that qualified for the state tourney and made it to state as an individual her sophomore campaign. Her freshman year the Indians placed fourth in the final team standings at Overland Park’s St. Andrews.
   Unruh did not play any other sports in high school as academics were her “main focus.” She later applied to a few colleges, but after hearing the University of Kansas had a good program for autism research, Unruh says she knew right then she wanted to be a Jayhawk.

Freshman year includes trip
   As for most college students, Unruh’s first year at KU flew by. But she maintained straight As in the classroom and finally settled on her major.
   “My first accomplishment of this year was deciding on a major—two, actually. I changed my mind a few different times, but finally decided that Cognitive Psychology and Applied Behavioral Science would work together nicely,” Unruh wrote in a letter to The Foundation last summer. “…The best news about this year is that I survived through two semesters of

chemistry! I have never before been quite so thrilled about earning an A in a class.”
   Unruh says she also applied some of the financial support she received through her KGF scholarship to the extra tuition for a short study abroad trip to London that takes place every year over spring break.
   “I had the trip of a lifetime exploring London with twenty-three of my classmates,” Unruh wrote. “I attended the musicals The Lion King and Jersey Boys, visited almost every part of the city, toured a few of the museums and the Tower of London, and visited Oxford University. A few of us even took a day trip to Paris!”
   After returning from the trip, Unruh and her classmates wrote articles about their experiences in London and compiled them in a book.
   “I can’t even begin to describe the impact this trip had on me,” she wrote to The Foundation.
   Unruh headed into this past fall with plenty of momentum. She became a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and was named their public relations officer for this school year. She was also named a member of Lambda Sigma, the sophomore honor society.
   “I love being a student at KU; I love living in Lawrence,” Unruh says. “It’s probably the best time to be a college student.”
   As Unruh began a busy second spring at the university, she still had time to thank the KGF and express how much the scholarship support had meant.
   “Obviously KU is an expensive place to go to school and knowing that some of my tuition is paid for every year is a huge burden off of me and my family,” she says. “The University of Kansas has, and will continue to provide me with so many opportunities. …without the KJGA Scholarship, I never would have had a chance to experience them.”