By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

FULTON — The 2025 Fulton County Lilly Endowment Community Scholar, Braden Rush, has called receiving the award “a blessing.”

Braden Rush

“I didn’t really expect it,” he said. “The call really came out of the blue … I felt very blessed … very special.”

The Fulton County Community Foundation announced last month that Rush, a Caston High School senior, got the scholarship, which will pay for his college tuition for four years and give a $900 annual stipend for books and equipment.

Rush, who’s the son of Aaron and Christi Rush of Fulton, was chosen over four other finalists for the honor: his Caston schoolmate Shayley Strasser as well as Reece Johnson, Katie Schouten and Ella McCarter.

“I don’t really see myself as better than anyone else,” said Rush. “(All the finalists were) so deserving.”

Rush received the Lilly scholarship based on his academics and community service. He also completed an interview and wrote an impromptu essay.

The essay was on “a family tradition that has helped you just in any way,” said Rush of the prompt.

“I did mine on how I was in 4-H because my great-grandma was a leader in 4-H, and she encouraged my grandma to do it, and she encouraged my mom to do it (before I did),” he said.

Rush said 4-H taught him “life skills and … more about what I like to do.”

He’s the treasurer of his local Junior Leaders group for 4-H as well as a member of the Bethlehem Helping Hands 4-H Club. His other extracurricular activities have included serving at his church, Fulton Baptist Temple, and being involved in soccer, track and field and drama club at Caston.

Rush is also in Key Club, the vice president of National Honor Society, one of the leaders for Caston’s mental health advocacy club Bring Change to Mind and president of Caston FFA’s parliamentary procedure team that went to nationals last year.

He plans to study aerospace engineering at Purdue University or chemical engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, hoping to eventually work for NASA or SpaceX.

“I’ve always kind of known I wanted to do engineering,” said Rush. “When I was in fourth grade, I was one of the members of Caston’s inaugural robotics club, and so that really kind of just sparked an interest in that.”

He said he became interested in aerospace engineering after doing a research project on it during his freshman year.

Rush said his engineering teacher Nathan Speitel has influenced him, as have his English and physics teacher Nikki Evans; algebra I and calculus teacher Tricia Bennett; and chemistry II teacher Jessica Hoffman.

Braden and Christi Rush state they are both “thankful” for the scholarship.

“He’s had lots of people to help him along the way, and we are fortunate that he has that at his school district, and his church and his family and his friends have just been very supportive of everything,” said Christi Rush.