By Mason Hunt

Sophie Kenig is a senior here at Wheatland High School, one of sixteen graduating. The reason I chose her for this interview is her ambition and interesting outlook that make her unique amongst the 2025 senior class.

Sophie is a bit infamous amongst the class for her obsession with F1 racing. According to her, the reason for this sudden interest in the sport is the Pinterest app. She saw a drawing of Snoopy the dog and Woodstock sitting on top of their doghouse wearing F1 driver outfits and thought it was cute. This led her down a trail of images and videos until she was hooked, and it was all over from there.

These days, she’s learning Italian and going to engineering school in hopes of working for an F1 team, with her degree in either aerospace or mechanical engineering. Her incredible work ethic is getting her dream closer and closer to a reality; she’s applied and been accepted to S&T in Rolla and gotten enough scholarships to bring her $30,000 price tag for the first year down to $6,000. When I asked her how she felt going into a school and profession that has such a small female workforce, this is what she told me:

“Pretty good. I think that the industry is opening up a lot recently to the idea of women in those positions; and they’re looking for people like me, who, you know, are willing to take on the challenge of paving the road for future generations.” S&T has a 23% female student population, and as a whole architecture/engineering professionals are only 16.7% female, but that number has been growing for the past several years. Female aerospace and mechanical engineers make up only 14% and 10% of those employed in their fields, respectively.

As one of her closest friends, I’ve watched Sophie achieve things that constantly impress me while she downplays or even denies her skill, intelligence, and abilities. She has grown much as a person throughout the years that I and the rest of the class has known her, and I wait with bated breath to see what she ends up doing in future endeavors. I can confidently say that she is one of the most interesting people I’ve met thus far in my life.