Each month Salida High School chooses a Student of the Month that is both exceptional in their academic and personal lives. For the month of May, the Salida High School Leadership Team has selected Kieran Hall.
Kieran Hall is an SHS senior who has lived and grown up in Salida since he was two years old, and has always been interested in STEM activities. He has participated in 4H robotics, along with seeking other projects with the community, like working on water rocket projects with local mentor Greg Justice, which he’ll be continuing throughout the summer. This passion has also led him to do an internship with the school’s IT department.
Hall’s time at SHS has been driven by his eagerness to learn and delving into his classes, despite difficult classes like Chemistry and Calculus II, Kieran says that he has enjoyed the challenge. He especially acknowledges Abigail Cooksey for curating his love of math. Cooksey has been the biggest mentor for him throughout the years.
When asked, Kieran noted that Ms. Cooksey was his biggest teacher influence in High school. “She was my advisor when I started out. And she also taught math, which was an important subject to me, and then computer science for a year. And that was really cool, too.”
He sees himself in the future likely following a path of mechanical engineering, with a focus in robotics. Nuclear plasma, radiological engineering and developing nuclear energy are all fields of study that interest Hall when applying to colleges.
Hall has been spending a lot of his free time volunteering to help teach younger kids about water rockets. He works with Greg Justice, who runs the water rocket program at the Boys and Girls Club here in Salida. He has worked with Justice teaching kids for a while now and is looking forward to doing it again this summer.
Hall has committed to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana, hopefully pursuing a degree of mechanical engineering due to the flexibility of the career, despite other passions. The small school environment is attractive to Hall, who likes being able to talk to his teachers.
In fact, fostering relationships with teachers is something he would suggest for all students. “It’s helped me immensely. And it’s made classes more interesting. It’s really nice to have someone to talk to about what you’re learning who’s legitimately very passionate about it.”
Hall says that he dreams of someday working in the aerospace industry designing rovers and satellites for the space industry. Who knows, maybe someday we will be able to watch Salida’s own Kieran Hall on CNN explaining to us all how the new mars rover that he designed is supposed to work. How does the old saying go? Shoot for the stars, and aim for the moon.
