Gabe Kimuri, a senior at Lawrence Free State High School, is the winner of the 2019 Lenora N. McGregor Endowed Scholarship at Wichita State University.
The Lenora N. McGregor Endowed Scholarship awards up to $26,000 over four years to an incoming freshman student who has demonstrated academic excellence, has an academic vision for the future and who expresses an interest in advancing knowledge through individual learning.
The McGregor scholar agrees to maintain membership in WSU’s Dorothy and Bill Cohen Honors College. The Cohen Honors College engages ambitious students through meaningful coursework, interdisciplinary study, collaborative research or creative activity, and community service. It offers a small college environment with the resources of a major research university.
Kimuri is the son of Eric and Larisa Kimuri and the first of three children. He plans to major in aerospace engineering and music performance at Wichita State. Gabe was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and grew up in Lawrence. Throughout high school, Gabe has excelled in his academics and been involved in a variety of extracurricular activities. Along with advanced physics and math classes, he has studied Spanish for five years. He plays varsity soccer and track and is the principal violist in the Free State High School Orchestra. He also participated in the Kansas City Youth Symphony, Topeka Youth Symphony and Lawrence Community Orchestra, and was selected for the All-State Orchestra the past two years.
Kimuri loves spending time with his family and enjoys nature and exercise. He makes a point to stay up to date with modern advancements in technology. He credits the start of his interest in aerospace engineering to when he visited a family friend who had built a plane in his garage and showed him all the steps. Kimuri was only in middle school, but knew he had found his calling.
Upon graduation, Kimuri plans to pursue a career in the aerospace industry. He chose WSU because of the strength of the engineering program and the aviation opportunities in the area. He wants to be a part of the Cohen Honors College in order to delve deeper into his topics of study, develop close relationships with his instructors and have a strong, well-rounded understanding of the concepts in the field.
The mission of Wichita State University is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good. Wichita State is a doctoral research university enrolling nearly 15,000 students and offering 59 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in seven undergraduate colleges. The Graduate School offers 45 master's and 12 doctoral degrees that offer study in more than 100 areas. Wichita State's Innovation Campus is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology. For more information, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wichitastate and Facebook at www.facebook.com/wichita.state.