KASSIDY LOCKE was steered toward her goal of studying occupational therapy by doing something that most parents do for their children but hardly any children do for their parents: she watched her dad learn to walk. Kassidy’s father, Tommy, has had a degenerative spine disease since Kassidy was in elementary school. This disease dramatically altered his mobility. Kassidy would take her father to therapy. Over time, she watched occupational therapists teach her father to walk again. “I was intrigued by what they did,” she says. “They were able to make him walk again. I want to make other people do those everyday things that people think are just normal.”

What isn’t normal for Kassidy is the treatment she received when she came for her tour of Brenau. She had toured other schools in big groups. At Brenau, however, her tour was conducted by a student and she received one-on-one attention. She was also touched by a small token of Brenau’s intimate, student-focused environment. “It’s kind of silly,” she says. “I went to the admissions office where they had the tours scheduled, and they had a sign on a board that said ’Welcome Kassidy Locke.’”

Now that she is a Brenau student, Kassidy is one who gives tours as part of the Student Government Association Traditions Commission. She gave her first tour in October, and she speaks excitedly about the experience. “I told them every single thing about Brenau,” she says.

A responsible, focused young woman, Kassidy has worked since she was 16 and also completed an intense critical internship at Athens Regional Medical Center in her hometown of Athens, Tenn. Therapy was part of her internship, but the part she remembers most vividly is the surgery component. In the first surgery she attended, she passed out from the shock of seeing a human body cut open. “I felt lightheaded. And the next thing I know is that I woke up with people around me and a towel on my forehead. But in occupational therapy, I won’t have to see all that blood.”