Oak Hill, WV (WOAY) – An Oak Hill rising freshman who wants to be an aerospace engineer is heading to one of the nation’s most selective student STEM programs this summer, becoming only the second Fayette County student ever accepted.
Paislee Persinger said the news caught her off guard.
“I was really surprised because I didn’t think that I could do something like that. I thought I was only made for tiny things and I didn’t expect myself to get into something like that. And I didn’t think a kid from Fayette County could,” Persinger said.
Persinger has been accepted into the Appalachian Regional Commission STEM Academy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The free, two-week residential program places students inside Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the largest Department of Energy research facilities in the country.
Gayle Manchin, federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, described what students experience once they arrive.
“These students are put into teams. They’re not working solo, but they’re working with some of the greatest minds in the country. The people that work at Oak Ridge Laboratory are actually the people that work with these teams,” Manchin said.
Manchin said Persinger’s achievement speaks to the potential of students across southern West Virginia.
“I believe she’ll leave this camp with a much greater knowledge of what aerospace engineering is about, what that might entail, what she will need to continue to aspire to. And I think at the very basic level, it indicates that your zip code should never have anything to do with what you can become in life,” she said.
Persinger said her interest in aerospace started with her older sister.
“She got into aerospace, and she’s two years older than me. And then I started researching what that was because I had never heard of it. And that really interested me. And I’ve always wanted to join the military and I thought, I can join the Air Force and do this in there,” Persinger said.
She enrolls at Oak Hill High School this fall, where she has already been accepted into the school’s aerospace program. Her message to other students: work hard for what you want to achieve.
“I think that we need to go out more. I think we need to try more because I wouldn’t have gotten into this if I didn’t try. I apply to everything that I do. And I mean, you lose some, you want some. I win a lot because I go out where most kids my age don’t do that,” she said.
Persinger reports to Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 11.
