Plum student goes for Girl Scout Gold

While they’re not quite like Olympic medals, Girl Scouts of the USA does have its Gold, Silver and Bronze awards.

And Mackenzie Kmonk is about to wrap up the trifecta.

Prior to entering 11th grade at Plum Senior High School, Mackenzie has spent part of her summer conducting a free Soccermath Camp as her project to earn Girl Scouting’s highest honor, the equivalent of Eagle on the boys’ side.

“I’ve been playing soccer most of my life, and I enjoy math,” she said. “So I put the both of them together.”

A member of the high school team that advanced to the state semifinals in the fall, she looks to be a role model for younger girls who would like to pursue athletics. And she certainly serves as a stellar example in the classroom.

“I took honors geometry over the summer of ninth grade, and then my sophomore year, I took honors pre-calc and I took applied statistics,” Mackenzie said. “I was in a class with my brother, and they were mostly seniors. I was the only sophomore.”

To integrate mathematics with soccer, one of her camp activities was to assign numbers to participants and then call out equations. The girls would have to do some addition to determine whose turn it was to kick the ball.

Another example involved asking the youngsters: “What’s the best angle to shoot from with your foot?”

About a dozen girls under age 10 signed up for the camp, which took place during nine sessions over three weeks at the high school and Larry Mills Park.

Prior to working on the Gold Award, Mackenzie earned her Bronze by using recycled materials to decorate a float in a parade. For her Silver, she converted old dressers into mini-libraries, with the added amenity of dog cleanup bags, to place in parks.

According to Girl Scouts of the USA, candidates for the Gold Award are instructed to:

• Find an issue in your community or the world that you care about.

• Learn everything you can about that issue through research and trusted sources.

• Form a team by identifying experts and people in your community who could help you.

• Think about the root cause of an issue and then make a plan of how you could tackle it.

The goal is for those who earn the award to share their stories “and inspire others to make a difference, too.”

In school, Mackenzie has been working on making a difference through serving as an officer in the Friends of Rachel Club. The organization — named for Rachel Scott, the first victim of the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado — aims to help prevent bullying and other negative types of behavior that confront teens.

Given her academic interests, it comes as no surprise that Mackenzie would like to study a mathematical field, possibly engineering.

And given her achievements in the classroom and as a Girl Scout, her résumé should be received warmly in all of her pursuits.