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Blake Hurst, 2020 recipient of the Dr. William H. Masterson Memorial Scholarship, for excellent performance in history and humanities courses, on why he chose to major in history.
I’ve loved history ever since I was little. Looking over the illustrations in my Osbourne world history book, I was fascinated by the warriors in crested helmets, the explorers sailing across the ocean, the pyramids where people worshipped their gods. It almost seemed like a fantasy world, but it was real, it happened. It was only when I got older that I realized that behind these stories of warriors and explorers and priests in their pyramids, there were people like me who adapted to their world, changed it, survived it, and contributed, in ways great and small, to the life I live now.
That’s why I’m majoring in history, why I’m drawn to it now. I want to find these people and meet them, in journals and artifacts, in ancient records and older rumors. By understanding them, I feel like I come to understand myself a little bit better. For that, I am ever appreciative of the history department staff, among whom I’ve found only kindred-spirits and a bottomless enthusiasm to help me discover exactly that–connections to the present through the past. I’m honored to have received the Dr. William Masterson Memorial Scholarship, and I hope to pass it on by sharing my lifelong love of history with others, helping them understand their own lives better by discovering the people who have come before them.
