Shelbi Bretz

Shelbi has lived in Lincoln almost her entire life. It’s where she grew up, where she learned to drive, where she works, and where she now goes to school. She loves it here, and doesn’t plan on leaving for quite some time. Shelbi began her education in private school, was homeschooled for a few years, went back to private school, and finally landed at Lincoln East High School. As she entered high school, Shelbi was scared, quiet, and very shy, but her grandma somehow convinced her that she should join the speech team. The day Shelbi walked into the first meeting was the first day of the rest of her life. Over the course of her four years in high school, Shelbi became a completely different person, learning to present in front of audiences as small as one and as large as a filled auditorium during graduation. She became confident, not only in her speaking abilities, but in her ability to think of new ideas and have intellectual conversations about them.

As Shelbi entered college, she was thrust into a whirlwind of new ideas, philosophies, and world perspectives. She discovered that her ideas matter, and so do the ideas of everyone around her. Shelbi learned that some of the most valuable time she will ever spend is sitting in a coffee shop with her professors, listening to how they got to where they are now. Currently majoring in English Education, and slowly but surely saving for graduate school so she can eventually become a professor, her interests are vast and varied, from Hitler’s rhetoric to today’s feminist movements, but they all point back to one fundamental ideal: People are different, but every single one of them has something important to teach, and she has a passion to learn it. As Shelbi plugs her way through her next three years of undergraduate work, then however many more years of grad school, Shelbi wants to continue to expand her mind, to learn about the perspectives of people she knows nothing about, and to become the most well-rounded person she can be.