09/02/2026
My name is Kara Beth Poe, and I am a senior studying political science, communications and political marketing. I graduated from Magoffin Co. High School in 2023.
During my time at UofL, I have served as a McConnell Center staff and public relations assistant for three years, as outreach coordinator and chair of our student council, as community service director and director of programming for Chi Omega, as community service co-coordinator for ELSB, and as communications director for SGA. Outside of campus, I interned in Senator McConnell’s Washington, D.C., office, the U.S. Senate Republican Cloakroom, and the Kentucky Senate Majority Caucus.
Although I am proud of these opportunities, my most valuable experience has been being a McConnell Scholar. The McConnell Scholars Program is more than a scholarship: it is a place where I have been challenged to think deeply and love harder.
The Center has given me a community of people whom I consider my best friends. We do not all have the same interests or study focus, but we come together and celebrate the differences that make this program special. These are friends who check in when I am under the weather and are the first to celebrate my successes.
My favorite memories are not necessarily from seminars or distinguished speakers, but from the little moments no one can document: sitting and laughing in the student lounge and at organized dinners, making potato soup in Mecosta, Michigan, spaghetti for forty people and spending three weeks in Italy and the UK with my best friends.
I have also experienced overwhelming love and support from the Center staff. They are more than people organizing programming and scholarships. They are the people who check on you, invite you to Easter when you have nowhere else to go, and always leave their doors open to talk.
The McConnell Scholars Program is a community you cannot find anywhere else. They have shaped me into the person I am today.
That is where a McConnell Scholarship can take you.
If you are a senior or junior in high school and have questions about the program or application, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected].
