ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Turpin High School has a history of high performance and recently, one of the school’s seniors helped add to that.
The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence (OFE) will soon honor 100 Oklahoma public school seniors as members of its 2026 Academic All-State class, including Turpin High School senior Scout Rorabaugh.
“OFE has honored 4,001 All-Staters from 345 school districts. This year’s honorees are from 63 public schools in 58 districts,” OFE information noted. “Students can apply for Academic All-State only if they meet one of three criteria: an ACT composite score of at least 30; a combined SAT evidence-based reading & writing and math score of at least 1370; or having been selected as a semifinalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program. A selection committee evaluates applicants through a rigorous process based on academic achievement, leadership and community service, as well as letters of recommendation and an essay.”
Rorabaugh said she has indeed remained busy during her high school career.
“For the past four years, I've been my class's president, and we've gotten to do a lot of work and different events. For the past two years, I've served as the Student Council president and focused a lot on philanthropy, especially with local causes,” Rorabaugh said. “I'm also a member of Make-A-Wish Oklahoma and serving as the social media co-chair. I've also been involved with state Student Council a lot. I was an Oklahoma Association of Student Councils Difference Maker Award nominee – I've been to a whole bunch of camps for that, and I've served as that president and vice president. I've been very involved with 4H, I'm a member of Oklahoma 4H'S Key Club, and that means I'm in the top 10 percent of Oklahoma's 4H members. I've served as all of the local officers for our club and then I've served as county president a couple of times, and then as the Northwest district reporter and vice president. I've known about the award itself for a long time, I've known about it since Carson Buller got it back in 2020. Ever since then, it's been a goal of mine to be a recipient. I applied for it in December and then found out I was officially a recipient in the middle of last month.”
Upon receiving the official word from OFE, Rorabaugh said she was extremely happy.
“I was really happy, and it recognizes all the hard work and dedication I put toward it, because it does take a lot of work. I took the ACT multiple times so I could get my score up to where it needed to be, and that was probably the hardest part for me,” Rorabaugh said. “This award looks at your academics, and school's always rather come pretty naturally to me, and it also looks at leadership and community service and those aspects. I was already doing a lot of that work, and I've done around 250 hours of community service while I've been in high school, so I've definitely put a lot of time and effort toward that. It was very rewarding to be recognized for all of that. They actually sent me a box with some goodies like honor cords and magnets and thank-you notes for our teachers, and it was really neat. I felt really happy and really grateful while opening the box, it was similar to the other college acceptance packages I've gotten.”
Rorabaugh said she was inspired to apply while working on other college application work.
“I was starting to do college applications and really look at what I've done while I've been in school. It was kind of mind-blowing thinking about how I else I could have spent my time, and I'm very glad I decided to spend my time working and being part of the community and everything else I accomplished,” Rorabaugh said. “I felt it was time to get a little recognition for all of that. Not to sound conceited or anything like that, but I've done a lot of work and been involved in a lot while I've been in school, and I thought it was time for some of that to be recognized. I figured it would be silly to not at least try for it, so I decided to go for it.”
And with her recently receiving the honor, Rorabaugh said she would love to see others from Turpin be recognized as well.
“At Turpin, we have a really big emphasis on extracurricular activities, so if you meet the ACT requirement, your extracurriculars will be more diverse compared to students at other bigger schools and help you stand out,” Rorabaugh said. “You stand out to a lot of those panels if you're involved in multiple activities, and I also highly recommend studying seriously for the ACT because not only could it help with this OFE honor, but it could also get you some other scholarships and other recognitions.”
And even with all of her high school accomplishments, Rorabaugh said she is not planning on slowing down.
“I'm planning to attend the University of Oklahoma, and I'm going to be majoring in psychology with a pre-med focus. I want to be a psychiatrist specifically, and I want to provide mental health care to rural areas where there's less access. Right now, there are fewer of those providers in general, and it's something that's really important to me,” Rorabaugh said. “A lot of my family has struggled with mental health issues, and there's not a lot of providers out here. Looking at those rural areas, there are a little or there are a lot of mental health problems, whether that be addiction, depression, etc. My family's a farming family, and farmers are way more likely to commit suicide than the average person, just because of how finicky their profession is, and I would say that's kind of inspired me to pick my focus and why I want to pursue mental health care in college. I've also been accepted into OU's Honors College, so I'm really excited about that, and just a few days ago, I got word I'll be in their President's Leadership Class. I'm really excited, a lot of my friends have done it. You get put with a lot of really great leaders and you make a lot of really great connections, and I believe we do a lot of community service at OU through that, so I'm just really excited to also be part of all of that. I'm also planning to rush and be in a sorority, and I'd still like to be involved with community service through that, especially hopefully through my sorority's philanthropy, whatever that happens to entail.”
Overall, Rorabaugh said, she is grateful for the recognition.
“I want to thank the teachers at Turpin, they're really supportive, and I don't think I would have made it this far without them, whether that be leading my extracurriculars or helping me in the classroom,” Rorabaugh said. “They're really understanding, and they really push you to do your best.”
