LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Eastern Kentucky native Monica Marks defied the odds by making it to college — something no one in her extended family had done. Now she has claimed one of the most coveted academic awards.
Marks, a graduate of the University of Louisville, has been named a Rhodes Scholar.
The 23-year-old Marks tells The Courier-Journal that while growing up, the discussion wasn't about what college to attend but whether she was even going to college.
Marks grew up in Rush, Ky., among fundamentalist Jehovah's Witnesses. Neither of her parents graduated from high school. She says she constantly asked her parents for books to feed her appetite for reading.
She learned she won the scholarship Saturday, after interviewing with selection officials in Indianapolis along with other finalists from Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.
She'll spend the next two years at Oxford University, in England, studying for a master's of philosophy degree in modern Middle Eastern culture.
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