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The lights go out and the curtain falls as claps and shouts are heard from the other side. After a long performance, senior Kenna Cook recallsthe challenges she faced to make it this far.
Cook was born in Lafayette, Ind. before moving to New York for herdads job. While in New York, Cook was homeschooled.
“My mom would do a unit about Egypt, and then we would just go to Egypt since NYU covered all schooling expenses,” Cook said. “We went to Egypt, Rome, Greece, France – all kinds of places.”
During these years, Cook realized that the learning standards are different from public school.
“We got to focus on important things instead of busy work stuff , which seems pretty common here,” Cook
said.
Being homeschooled also had its stereotypes, which didn’t help Cook when she transferred into NS.
“Even though homeschooled kids have a bad reputation, I think I learned more because I got to choose
what I learned,” Cook said.
Although Cook had a lot of freedom and creativity while being homeschooled, a change to public school was hard to adapt too.
“I never actually had to make friends until freshman year – it’s just a hard thing to do,” Cook said, “and it was hard watching new kids move in and be instantly accepted when it’s taking me years.”
Because of the difficulties with making friends, Cook found herself growing closer to her siblings, esoecialy her older brother Harry Cook.
“I think growing up in Abu Dhabi kind of forced us to be friends,” Harry Cook said, “not in a bad way, but just because we didn’t have consistent connections with other people.”
After a few years of living in New York, Cook’s family moved to Abu Dhabi as the result of an NYU campus being built there. Cook and her family would continue to move back and forth from Abu Dhabi to New York for many years.
“Moving has made me a lot more open minded,” Cook said. “It’s also a lot harder to make friends since no one can really relate.”
In the summers, Cook’s family would spend time in Fountain Green where she met Brandt Lund, junior at NS, and a strong friendship evolved.
“Kenna and her family showed up to our ward, and I just sat down and talked to her because I was pretty talkative,” Lund said.
“After that I always looked forward to having them back every summer.”
Over the years, Cook and Lund became closer up to a point where they formed a tight sibling bond that is still growing strong.
“She’s one of those people who genuinely cares,” Lund said. “It’s always been that way, and she’s always just someone who I can go to for anysituation and she makes it better.”
With all of the traveling, Cook has developed many interests, such as swimming, reading, drawing and especially music.
“There’s like a soundtrack to every year of my life,” Cook said. “I listen to playlists I had last year and it ties the whole year together.”
Cook has been part of many music involved things such as choir and the musical.
“Choir carried me through the years, even though I don’t really need it anymore, it still makes me very happy,” Cook said.
Facing these challenges, Cook has found out that having a small amount of people backing her up could be enough.
“Genuinely, I don’t know what I would have done without Ben [Cox] and [Tim] Kidder,” Cook said.
“They’ve just helped me feel comfortable when no one else did.”
Over the years, Cook has noticed many ways in which she has changed, a major one is being more understanding and accepting of people.
“I think because I got to grow up in different places and cultures, it’s easier to understand people,” Cook said, “all of that put together made me understand that everyone has a reason for being the way that they are.”
