Lane is one of the many student-athletes at William Jewell College, and she has to juggle practice, classes and clinicals at Children’s Mercy Hospital. The reason she chose nursing is a mixture of family advice and curiosity for the science of the human body.

“My dad was like ‘you should be a nurse’ and I was like ‘why?’ and he said ‘cause you’ll always have a job’ and I was like ‘that’s true.” And I don’t know, I just really wanted to help people, and learn about the human body and how it works, i think it’s super cool,” she said.

Lane is known for her love for sports. She loves every sport and what it represents to people and to her family. She shared a few memories of how sports would help her family through fights and hard times,  as well as childhood memories of going to games with her father.

“I like how excited people get and how happy people get for something that doesn’t even matter, it’s just great. And people come together – like I was in the Charlotte airport the other day, cause I was flying back from New York on fall break, and there was a guy wearing a UT T-shirt and I was wearing a UT T-shirt and he was like ‘Hey! Texas!’ and I was like ‘no way!,’ like ‘Texas!’ […] I don’t know, I just really like how it brings people together,” Lane said.

Lane is one of the players on the Jewell tennis team and she pointed out that she’s worried about not playing for a team after graduation.

“I’m really going to miss being on a team, like the tennis team. I’ve been a part of a team my whole life. I’ve always played sports and sports are something that I love. […] Not being a part of a team I think will be really hard,” said Lane.

Lane is also really passionate about Texas, her home state. She shared how she misses family, friends, people cheering for the same teams as she does and family traditions.

“The [Texas] Cowboys play on every Thanksgiving – This is so redneck, but every Thanksgiving my grandparents come in town and we sit around my driveway in chairs in our Cowboy’s jerseys. We get this turkey and lower it down onto this pot of oil and we fry it. And it’s delicious. And we all sit there and watch the turkey sit on the pot of oil,” she said.

This is Lane’s last year at Jewell and she told the Monitor she will miss the red brick buildings the most because they remind her of her childhood home. She will also miss how the campus is so pretty, the tennis team, Cindy the coffee lady, the leaves changing colors, Alpha Gamma Delta and her sisterhood friends and Kansas City.

“I will probably get back to Texas and be like ‘aw, I miss this [about Jewell].’ But what I’ll miss the most is tennis and Gam […] Tennis, Gam and red bricks,” Lane said.

As for her plans for the future, after Lane graduates she plans to go back to Texas, take her NCLEX – National Council Licenciature Exam, work as a pediatric oncology nurse and then get her scuba diving certification. Her only wishes for her legacy here at Jewell is for people to call the Pryor Learning Center “The Pulc,” KA “kah” and to say “sports!” more often.  

Photos by MacKenzie Roth