Senior Salute: Gary Boggs Award winner McKenna Ellen is shining example of what is positive about Fort Vancouver

She started out playing volleyball her freshman fall season, but a run-in with a teammate soured her on that sport.

So the following fall, she turned to swimming for the first time.

“Swimming is not very well advertised at Fort,” she said. “Not a lot of people knew about it. But I talked to a girl on the team and asked her if it was fun. She said it was and the coach was great, so I decided to turn out. I remember my first practice thinking ‘Oh my gosh. This is really hard.’ But it got me in great shape and I became really close with the girls on the team.”

Her experience with tennis in the spring followed a similar path.

“Tennis was hard my freshman year because I had never played it before and I wasn’t very good,” Ellen said. “But sophomore year, we got a new coach (Corey Farr) and he made us work, pushed us to learn and get better.”

In the winter, Ellen competed in bowling, a sport in which she excelled and grew up playing in her family.

She was a member of the varsity team all four years at Fort and qualified for state in 2018 and 2019.

Last year, Ellen, with the help of her coach, Julie Pagel, began researching colleges where she might be able to earn a scholarship for bowling.

She narrowed that list of schools down to the ones that offered a degree in elementary education, eventually leading her to sign with the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky.

“I had three or four schools interested in me, but the University of the Cumberlands was really interested in me,” she said. “The coach got a hold me and emailed me like two times a week. So that got me more interested in going there. I looked up pictures of the school and thought ‘Oh, this looks pretty.’

“But that’s still quite a drive away,” Ellen said. “So I’m a little nervous. People say the freshman year is the hardest. But bowling will make it easier, so I’m super excited about going.”

She added: “It feels a little weird to tell people I’m going across the country for bowling. It’s not the kind of sport people expect you to get a scholarship for. They’ll be like ‘What?’ But it’s something I’ve always dreamed about.”

Ellen was also involved in the Associated Student Body program at Fort, helping to promote school spirit and camaraderie.

Her involved in ASB and being a three-sport athlete is what she’s most proud about her time at Fort.

“For me, it’s all about having pride in your school and trying to represent your school in a great way,” Ellen said. “Fort often gets this bad reputation. So we need more students to represent Fort in a good way because there are so many good things about Fort and maybe a couple of bad things. But every school has negative things about it. We just need to switch our thinking and look at the positives.”

At Fort Vancouver, the Trappers can look at students like McKenna Ellen.

Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at (360) 735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.