BW’s Moran is a natural-born leader

Con­nor Moran

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Con­nor Moran, a senior at Big Wal­nut High School, is the quin­tes­sen­tial high school stu­dent. He not only takes a vari­ety of courses where he does well, includ­ing a post-secondary class at Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity Col­lege, but he also is a leader in numer­ous school organizations.

Liv­ing in the Big Wal­nut dis­trict his entire life, Con­nor likes senior year “a lot” so far.

“Every­thing is get­ting more seri­ous. I have to focus,” he said. “I’m excited for some­thing new and ready to start on my own.”

This means achiev­ing his degree, mov­ing on to earn­ing a doc­tor­ate and then start­ing his own busi­ness. He is not cer­tain if he will remain in the area due to the nature of the busi­ness he hopes to enter.

“Ide­ally, I would like to travel,” Con­nor said.

He is apply­ing to the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, Ohio North­ern Uni­ver­sity and Case West­ern Reserve. He hopes even­tu­ally to achieve a doc­tor­ate. His inter­ests lean toward phys­i­cal ther­apy and psychology.

He said there is a real need for a doc­tor­ate for going into phys­i­cal therapy.

“There will be more oppor­tu­ni­ties,” he said. Yet he has no prob­lem going to school the extra years. “I like school. I like learn­ing a lot.”

At first, Con­nor was con­sid­er­ing Ohio North­ern, but more recently became inter­ested in Case West­ern. He is look­ing for the best school for his program.

“Plus afford­abil­ity. That’s a big thing,” he said, adding that he has two sis­ters also in college.

Connor’s inter­est in phys­i­cal ther­apy is more recent, while he has thought about psy­chol­ogy for a year or two. He has both an uncle and cousin with psy­chol­ogy back­grounds, is tak­ing a course in psy­chol­ogy at Colum­bus State and enjoys watch­ing psy­chol­ogy shows on television.

The course he is tak­ing at Colum­bus State is one of a series which he hopes to con­tinue through­out the year.

Kather­ine Daw­son, math teacher at Big Wal­nut, said, “Con­nor is an excel­lent stu­dent and an out­stand­ing young man.”

She said Con­nor “takes his aca­d­e­mics seri­ously,” refer­ring to post-secondary course­work in addi­tion to tak­ing Advanced Place­ment Cal­cu­lus at Big Wal­nut. Daw­son has had Con­nor in class for two years and said she appre­ci­ates Connor’s work ethic and will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in class.

“I have no doubt Con­nor will be a huge suc­cess — here at Big Wal­nut, through his col­lege years, and as a pro­duc­tive cit­i­zen,” she said.

Connor’s inter­est in phys­i­cal ther­apy can be traced to his par­tic­i­pa­tion in dif­fer­ent sports. He has been in track both in mid­dle and high schools and has also done rowing. 

“I’ve always had a big inter­est in run­ning. Push­ing my lim­its. See­ing the best way to do it,” he said. Smil­ing, he added some­times his body says no to what he asks of it.

In track, he likes to run the 2-mile, see­ing how long he can stay in for him­self. Con­nor has already run one half marathon and is in train­ing to do another in November.

“I com­pete against myself,” he said.

His row­ing team placed 10th at nation­als. Row­ing, Con­nor said, is more of a team sport. If one mem­ber does poorly, it trans­fers to the entire team.

He recently gave up row­ing — which he pre­vi­ously did six days a week, year round for the past year and a half — to focus more on his col­lege appli­ca­tions this year.

Con­nor is also very active in school activ­i­ties. He said he was talked into stu­dent coun­cil his sopho­more year, and has liked it ever since.

At the time, he and a friend found they were not sat­is­fied with what was being accom­plished. So they jumped in to change things.

“I like the com­mu­nity involve­ment,” he said.

With lots of demands on his time as either pres­i­dent or vice pres­i­dent of var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions, he still jumps right in when any­thing new comes up. Cur­rently, Con­nor is work­ing on National Honor Soci­ety induc­tions, grad­u­a­tion and sev­eral blood dri­ves for the Red Cross.

Angie Stooks­bury, Eng­lish teacher and stu­dent coun­cil advi­sor, said “Con­nor is a won­der­ful young man and a great stu­dent. He has been in stu­dent coun­cil for the past four years and has done a remark­able job. He is cur­rently the trea­surer and our school board liai­son. I can trust him to get things done and done well. Con­nor goes above and beyond in every­thing he does, and he truly deserves this recognition.”

With every­thing in his sched­ule, Con­nor still finds time for work at a local golf course. In some ways he said he looks for­ward to the course clos­ing for the win­ter so that he can focus more on apply­ing for scholarships.

With what lit­tle spare time he has, Con­nor enjoys play­ing gui­tar and running.

“With crew, you need a body of water, a boat. Run­ning I can do wher­ever. It’s some­thing I can do the rest of my life,” he said.

Con­nor is the son of Kevin and Lisa Moran of Sunbury.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Oct 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.