Granite Edvance Scholarship winner Tory Rudolph: ‘I want to be that teacher who makes a difference’

Tory Rudolph’s teaching career started very early, with one highly motivated student: herself.  

Going through struggles at home, including the death of her dad, she had started falling behind her peers in elementary school.  

“I didn’t pick things up as quickly as everyone else, but I wanted to do better. I just wanted to be smart,” said Tory, who remembers asking for math workbooks for Christmas when she was in third or fourth grade. “I just started teaching myself how to learn.”  

As she continued to chart her own course, Tory learned she wasn’t entirely alone. In elementary school, her teachers were a constant source of support during the hard times at home. And in middle school, one teacher helped her find ways to succeed academically. “She took her time with everything. She never rushed if somebody didn’t understand something,” said Tory, winner of a Granite Edvance Opportunity Scholarship. “It finally started to click.”  

In high school, Tory discovered ice skating and then went on to teach children how to skate. In the rink with gaggles of 5- to 10-year-olds, she found her passion. “So many people would say, ‘How to you do that?’ but to me, it’s so fun,” said Tory, who is entering her junior year at Plymouth State University.   
 
During her last semester of high school, Tory completed an internship at Paul Smith Elementary School in Franklin. The experience brought back memories of her own time in elementary school and further inspired her to pursue a career in education.  

“I just want to be there for kids because you never know what’s going on at home,” she said. “I want to be that teacher who makes a difference.” 

Deciding on a career in elementary education was the easy part for Tory. Navigating college and financial aid as a first-generation student proved more challenging. Luckily, she’d developed the grit she needed to succeed at an early age.  
 
“I definitely think having to teach myself all of those things, it honestly helped me. It taught me independence at a young age,” said Tory, who commutes to college from her home in Franklin to save money, works part-time, and applies to as many scholarships as she can.  

As a teacher, Tory hopes she can pass on some of these life lessons, along with her hard-won academic skills. “Having a higher level of education while being a first-generation college student means a lot to me,” she wrote in her scholarship essay. “It means that I have pushed through all the walls of self-doubt, frustration, and isolation that I have felt. … If there is anything I want to do with my experiences of being the first in my family to further my education, it is to teach future students that they can be resilient and do the same thing and let nothing hold them back.”  

Stay tuned for more stories about our scholarship winners!