McCracken County High School senior Katherine Culp Oliver is interested in languages and about how people convey information to one another through language. She loves to learn French, especially.
“Linguistics is the study of language, so it deals both psychologically with how we create it in our minds, but also the way we physically say it with our mouths, and how language has developed over time,” she said. “I’m most interested in the way language has developed and just differences in languages.”
The 17-year-old student plans to attend the University of Kentucky and major in linguistics. She has taken several French classes in high school at McCracken County, along with Spanish.
“I’ve looked at the different possibilities, but I’m really hoping that I can just explore the different avenues during college and see what fits,” she said, on a future career.
Oliver, daughter of Crystal Culp and John Oliver of Paducah, is the Paducah Bank Teen of the Week.
Every Tuesday, The Sun publishes stories on area high school seniors chosen from a group of nominees for Teen of the Week recognition. Around the end of the school year, a selection committee names one of these students as Teen of the Year, which carries a $5,000 scholarship. Another student will receive the Inspiration Award and a $1,000 scholarship.
At McCracken County, Oliver has earned a weighted cumulative GPA above 4.20.
She’s been involved with different school clubs and activities, including the girls’ golf team, Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, sewing club and the Société Honoraire de Français (French National Honor Society). Oliver also attended the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars program last summer at Morehead State University.
“I started sewing by going to quilt summer camp at the quilt museum, but I started sewing clothes freshman year,” she said. “I just decided that was something I want to do and I had my grandma show me how.”
Oliver also started golfing at a young age, and eventually joined the McCracken golf team in middle school and stuck with it. Regarding the sport, Oliver explained that the way it’s talked about on the golf team is “you’re competing against yourself” and trying to outdo your last score, or trying to better yourself.
“It’s just a good way for me to bond with my grandfather and father,” she said, on golfing. “They were the ones who got me into it, and it’s just a good way to spend some quality time with them, and also get outdoors, because I don’t like to do that. I’d rather be reading.”
With graduation very soon, Oliver shared that her senior year at McCracken County has been good, and she was able to make a “really great” memory toward the end of it by being a stage manager for the school’s spring musical production, “Freaky Friday.” It had been something new she had wanted to try her entire high school career.
“I’m excited,” Oliver said, on graduating and college. “I think it’s going to be a good time. A lot of (the) friends that I made at GSP are going to go to same college as me, so I’ll get to see them again.”
By: Kelly Farrell