Kalispell college student named Truman Scholar

Award is U.S.’s most prestigious undergrad scholarship

BOZEMAN — The outgoing president of the Montana State University student body who has goals of improving public education in Montana has been named a recipient of a 2016 Truman Scholarship, one of the most prestigious national scholarships in the United States given to college juniors with demonstrated leadership potential and commitment to public service.

Levi Birky, a junior from Kalispell majoring in broad field social studies education, is MSU’s 12th Truman Scholar. Birky, a Flathead High School graduate, is one of just 54 winners nationally of what is considered the country’s most prestigious undergraduate scholarship. It provides $30,000 toward graduate school and the opportunity to participate in professional development to prepare recipients for careers in public service leadership.

 In total, 775 American students were nominated by 305 colleges and universities this year for the award designed to pinpoint and support the country’s future leaders. The scholarship is a living memorial to the late U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

 MSU President Waded Cruzado personally announced the award to Birky, making a surprise visit to one of his classes with a bouquet of blue and gold flowers. She said that Birky’s selfless, yet skillful work this year as president of the student body exemplified the words of Truman, who said that “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

 “My life has just changed,” said an emotional Birky when he received the news. He said he plans to use the scholarship to study education policy, hoping to do so at Harvard University after teaching for a couple of years at a Montana high school.

 Birky said the Truman award is the pinnacle of several life-changing events that he has had since he came to MSU as a first-generation college student. Birky’s father, Randy, owns a logging business in Kalispell and his mother, Gaylene, recently retired from a 30-year career as a travel agent.

 Birky said he came to MSU because he likes outdoor sports, including fishing and hunting, and he immediately felt comfortable on the Bozeman campus and in the surrounding mountain environment. He said his only activity at Flathead was playing soccer, “and I really wasn’t very good at it.” He also said he wasn’t a particularly stellar student. Vowing to change that when he came to MSU, as a freshman he ran to represent his college, the College of Education, Health and Human Development, as an ASMSU senator. He won by just two votes.

“Those two votes fundamentally changed my life,” he said. He is also now a member of the MSU Honors College.

 At MSU he said he discovered that he had a passion for both leadership and government. At the end of his sophomore year he ran for vice president of ASMSU. Shortly after his junior year began, the president of the organization resigned and Birky was thrust into the role of president. He said he credits several faculty and staff mentors “who have invested heavily in me,” including Cruzado and Marianne Brough, director of operations for ASMSU. Both, he said, helped him to not only step up, but make the position his own. He said that the initiative of which he is the most proud is bringing an official Gallatin County polling place back to the MSU campus. Birky relinquishes his gavel as student body president in the next two weeks.

 Ilse-Mari Lee, dean of the MSU Honors College and the coordinator of major scholarships at MSU, said Birky’s experience with ASMSU helped him understand “the transformative power of education.”

Birky said his own positive experiences at MSU, as well as negative experiences of family members and friends who had difficulty adjusting to the collegiate environment, inspire him to work to provide higher education alternatives for all Montanans.

Just two weeks ago, Birky learned he had received a Newman Civic Fellowship Award. Birky will receive the Truman award in a ceremony at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, on May 29. Then he will return to Kalispell to help with the family logging business over the summer.

“When I called my parents to tell them my life had changed and that I had won a Truman, my father got on the phone and asked if they taught logging at Harvard,” Birky joked.

Birky is MSU’s third Truman Scholar in two years.