The Governor’s Scholars Program (GSP) is a five week program over the summer where upcoming high school seniors reside on a college campus and complete a personalized curriculum. Being selected to participate in the program is an impressive accomplishment in it of itself, as the application process is very competitive. But even among the talented group of students chosen each year, only a small portion are selected as Winner Circle Scholars, an award given to selected GSP participants by the program’s committee in partnership with Churchill Downs. Joplin Hora (12) is one such individual.
The GSP committee selects around 40 students from the program to receive the award each year. They look for students who demonstrate the qualities of leaders and display excellence in their character. Joplin says he wasn’t attempting to win the award, but simply trying to carry himself in a positive manner at the program.
“I just tried to be a nice kid. I tried to be open minded. I tried to say my piece without any regrets. And I suppose the GSP faculty saw that I put that on and they gave [me] this award because they thought I was a good example of what a good Kentucky future leader could be.”
Joplin attended GSP in the summer following the 2023-2024 school year. Students who attend GSP need to choose a focus area, so Joplin chose creative writing. His general studies, a class assigned to him by program staff, was titled “Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?” in reference to the Joker’s iconic line in the 1989 film Batman. The class focused on iconography and the influence comics and media has on history and popular culture. Joplin says the information he gained was beneficial for his senior year.
“IB demands a connection to the real world and application of knowledge that you acquire over time and…how you can analyze patterns to better the world around you,” says Joplin. “I think it was an important skill for me to learn over the summer.”
Helping him in his academic achievement is just one thing Joplin says GSP did for him. He says that the experience was “life changing”, and opened his eyes to opportunities he hadn’t encountered in school.
“Before I hadn’t really been challenged to a degree I felt comfortable with because I thought everything was pretty easy wherever I went. GSP wasn’t necessarily hard, but it was definitely eye opening in the sense that I got to interact with people from all different kinds of walks of life,” Joplin says. “My roommate was very religious, and the conversations we had definitely have influenced my perspective about how religion can affect other people in a positive way.”
In fact, Joplin says that those wishing to participate in the program shouldn’t be doing it simply because it looks good on a transcript. Rather, potential participants should be excited about the opportunity to grow one’s mind.
“I think the accolade is good,” says Joplin. “But I think internally, if you’re going to have a good experience, you should genuinely want to go for the expanding of your mind, rather than an achievement on your thing (transcript). I think if you are applying for GSP, you want to go for the experience.”
Joplin’s emphasis on experience over academics surely hasn’t kept him from accomplishing great things, including receiving the Winners Circle award. Joplin says he appreciated having the work he put into the program being acknowledged by a recognized body.
“It was fun being on TV,” Joplin said when reflecting on his experience receiving the award. Joplin got to watch the horses cross the finish line at Churchill Downs, and he and the other recipients of the award got to take a photo with the winning jockey.
“In the initial picture, it kind of cut me off at the end because I was at the end of the photo, so it was kind of funny, but it was nice,” Joplin says.
While seemingly not too concerned about always looking the best, Joplin’s attitude and achievements are quite impressive to behold.
