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Pittsburg’s Burgoon is man on mission
   Getting to know the Kansas Junior Golf Scholars

   Kansas Golf Foundation scholars plan to make impacts on society in a variety of ways. Some plan careers in business, some want to teach and still others are looking into medicine. A math student now, Pittsburg State sophomore Ty Burgoon thinks he’ll be a man on a mission when he graduates in a few years.
   “I’ve taken some classes in other areas, but I think (math education) is still the plan. I’m going to go to school here four years, but I think God wants me to be a missionary,” says the 20-year-old Burgoon. “So I don’t know where that’s going to take me. I think having a math education degree would be very valuable going out into the world and being able to serve in that way.”

Trips have had an impact
   Last summer, Burgoon and a friend made a missions trip to Australia. The experience included nine days in the bush working with the Aboriginal people.
   “It was absolutely amazing,” Burgoon says. “Aside from traveling and seeing a different Ty Burgoon

continent, just seeing the different people. Just reaching out and touching their lives how God would and Jesus would want us to do. That really impacted me and kind of told me I could see myself doing that in the future.”
   Over Christmas break, Burgoon had the opportunity to travel to Mexico for another impact-full experience and this summer he has plans for a trip to Jordan.
   “That’s one of the things we’re doing with Campus Christians,” Burgoon says. “The campus minister’s parents are full time missionaries over there so we are going to be working with them, helping them. Honestly, I could see myself being perfectly content serving God in that way. I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I could really see myself spending the next eight or 10 years serving somewhere across the world.”
   Burgoon says he has become more and more active in his Campus Christians group at Pitt State this school year. He’s on the leadership team for the group which consists of about 100 students who meet each week.
   “I’m kind of one of the guys the campus minister confides in and wants to help run things on Thursday nights,” Burgoon says.
   He’s also spent time in intramural events and worked as a math tutor during first semester this year. This fall he met the challenge of a math class called Discrete Structures.
   “It was a 500-level class and it was pretty tough, I’m not going to lie,” he admits. “I took it for Honors, so I had to do an extra paper on the side. It wasn’t your typical math class, addition/subtraction or the typical algebra stuff you think of. It was about logic and reasoning and ‘if this happens, then this leads to this’ sort of thing. It was a different type of experience in what math will do for you.”
   Through his education and travels Burgoon says he remains appreciative of the support he has received through his KGF scholarship.
   “(The scholarship) has meant a lot…that’s a good chunk of money every year,” he says. “I don’t think money is everything in this world, but having that scholarship is definitely the difference in allowing me to have the college experience I want. Without the scholarship I would have had to have a job each and every semester that I’ve been here. The scholarship has really allowed me to focus in more time on my studies and have the good college experience.”

Late to the game of golf
   Burgoon says he didn’t take up the game of golf until he was a freshman in high school. He had a group of friends that played and they took him out on the Linn Valley Lakes course near the end of his freshman year at Prairie View High in Lacygne.
   “I went golfing a couple times over that summer and then they convinced me to join the

golf team my sophomore year,” says Burgoon. “I played golf my sophomore year. Then I ran track my junior year to get ready for football. Then I played golf again my senior year.”
Though sports like track, basketball and football, where he was a quarterback and an all-league free safety for the Buffalos, came rather easily to Burgoon, the difficulty of golf quickly gave him a lesson in humility, he admits.
“When I picked up golf it wasn’t exactly the easiest sport,” Burgoon says. “It was something I just couldn’t master in a short time period and it’s something that I know is going to be a life-long sport. It’s not something I can ever say I was once best at or that I think I’m going to be able to beat all my friends when we go out. It’s all about continually improving because from where I started to where I am now, I’ve improved, but there is a lot of room for improvement. And it’s taught me a lot of patience.”