Bigfork-area student wins prestigious scholarship

By his own admission, Creston-born Shane Colvin either has an “insatiable curiosity” or is an “academic masochist.”

Six years into his planned 13-year stint in higher education, either one seems appropriate.

But for the next two years, Colvin’s studies will be rigorous, but otherwise in stark contrast to the six years he’s spent at Montana State University in Bozeman. He’ll be studying in Ireland on one of the world’s most prestigious scholarships.

Colvin was one of 12 students in the U.S. to win the prestigious Mitchell Scholarship in November, what many observers call the “Rhodes Scholarship of Ireland.” Created in honor of Maine Senator George Mitchell who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland in the mid-90s, the Mitchell Scholarship sends 12 promising students to Irish universities to study in the field of their choice.

For Colvin, that field is music therapy. And it seems the perfect segway between the MSU student body president’s three undergraduate majors — one in Cell Biology and Neuroscience, a second in Chemistry/Biochemistry, and a third in Music — and his plans for medical school for his MD and a Masters of Public Health.

“I hope music therapy can be one of the things in my arsenal, in my bag of treatments,” Colvin said of his desired course of study. “And it’s perfect because Ireland is one of the few societies with a unique musical heritage.”

Being selected as a finalist for the highly competitive scholarship was an honor in itself, one the soft-spoken Colvin said was “very humbling.” Among the other finalist was a student who published her first book at age 10 and a first-year medical student who had already discovered a gene connected to obesity.

“It’s nice to be in association with those kinds of individuals,” he said. “There’s a certain energy you get when you have a group of highly motivated individuals in a room.”

The rooms didn’t just include the candidates, as the highly motivated, highly successful scholarship committee was saddled with making the tough choices to narrow the field of 18 down to 12. The committee included David Simon, creator of several celebrated television shows including The Wire and winner of Emmy and Peabody Awards; the oldest child of Robert F. Kennedy and the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland; a former NASA astronaut; and Ireland’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Collins.

And while all of the finalists must have missed something to fly to Washington D.C. for the final interview in front of a very distinguished scholarship committee, Colvin’s sacrifice was enormous.

“The interview was the weekend of the Cat-Griz game,” he said. “And because I’m the student body president, I had a pair of free tickets that I had to give up.”

So as his beloved Bobcats fell to their Missoula rivals, Colvin wandered around the Smithsonian and then to the airport, waiting for the call to come about whether he had won the scholarship or not.

The call, from scholarship director Mary Lou Hartman, came as Colvin’s plane started boarding, giving him the news of his success and not allowing him to share it with anyone but his honors advisor at MSU and his mother before the plane taxied to the runway.

“I called my mom from the runway, but had to wait until I got back to Montana to tell everyone,” he said. “It was a sleepless night.”

Colvin was homeschooled for much of his childhood, though he finished his high school years at Flathead High in Kalispell, a situation that he credits with his academic success.

“It was a great experience and it really focused me on critical thinking,” Colvin said. Being homeschooled was the best thing that could have happened to me education-wise.”

Colvin’s sister, Laura, is a senior at Bigfork High School this year.

In addition to his academic accomplishments, Colvin has also led a program to educate middle school students about the value of higher education to help reduce teen dropout rates in Bozeman, helped create a campus and community sustainability movement, and has been active as a “Big Brother” for four years. Colvin also performs with a number of musical groups at MSU, including a barbershop quartet and a six-man a cappella group. MSU awarded him the Senior Award for Excellence, and a Community Involvement award given out to one male student each year.

Colvin heads to Ireland in October, and while he finishes up his final semester at MSU is applying to medical schools for a deferred acceptance so that he can enroll immediately when he returns.

Colvin said he plans to use his voluminous education right here in Montana, where he hopes to return to help people through a medical practice and through public policy.

“Hopefully I’ll come back to the Valley, sometimes you don’t realize that what you can do is out your own back door,” he said. “I definitely want to come back to Montana, this is where I belong.”