Source: Pat Bosco, 785-532-6237, bosco@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Andy Badeker, 785-532-6415, abadeker@k-state.edu
Thursday, July 12, 2007
FOR ANDALE FAMILY, K-STATE IS LIKE A SECOND HOME
MANHATTAN -- The "K-State parent" sticker over the McFaddens' front door tells the truth, but not the whole truth. For that, they'd need a lot more stickers.
Phyllis and Jim McFadden, Andale, have watched seven of their eight children head off to Kansas State University, starting with Sarah, who graduated in 1992. The chain will end with Monica, their youngest, who will start this fall.
"When I was born, my sister was already attending school," Monica McFadden said. "So I've literally been coming to K-State since I was born."
"Sarah really, really wanted to go to K-State," Phyllis McFadden said. "I don't know where that drive came from," though Jim did earn his master's degree through a K-State outreach program.
High ACT scores and a Putnam scholarship meant that Sarah, now living near Garden Plain, could become a Wildcat.
"She did a lot of things, such as ushering at McCain, and the others thought that looked good," Phyllis McFadden said.
The next McFadden to become a K-Stater was Jeremy, who graduated in 1998; then came Elizabeth, a 1999 graduate; Mark, a 2003 graduate; and Matthew, who graduated in 2006. The sixth McFadden at K-State is Michael, who is on track to get his marketing degree in 2008.
Only Greg McFadden was immune to purple-shirt syndrome. He went to Fort Hays State University. Despite that, he's become a role model for Monica, who has shadowed him at his cameraman job for KWCH Channel 12 in Wichita. She has enrolled as a pre-journalism student and is leaning toward broadcasting.
But her other role models won out when it came to choosing a college.
"When they'd come home, they'd talk about all the cool people they'd met," Monica McFadden said, "and all their interesting classes, how it was nothing like high school.
"They were always in just a positive mood," she said. "When I made campus visits, I could see immediately what they were talking about. And after 18 years, I know the town as well as I know my own."
She considered other schools, she said, but "no other place could grab and hold on to my attention like K-State.
"A lot of people think because of my family that I must not have had any choice, but I focused on myself and did what I wanted to do."
Andale, a community of 800, is between Wichita and Hutchinson. Earlier in their children's academic lives, Phyllis McFadden said, she and her husband had considered reducing everyone's travel time by moving to Manhattan.
"But we didn't, because we didn't want the other kids to feel pressure to go to K-State."
Sometimes, kids do exactly what they want, no matter what parents try.