By mid-February Dylan Works will be settling into an apartment in Wellington, New Zealand, to start an adventure that will play out over the next 18 months.
The first 12 months he will study public policy at Victoria University, within a program that will give him ample time to assimilate into local culture and expand on studies he pursued at Kansas State University, political science and economics.
The final six months Works has an open-ended ticket to travel the world.
The foreign university experience will be made possible through a scholarship from Rotary’s Ralph R. Kirchner Fund for International Understanding, Works told Iola Rotarians Thursday. His parents, Fred and Judy Works, are Rotarians.
“Rotary has been a part of my life within my family” since he was a boy, Works related, noting how at age 5 he started working in Rotary concession stands and helped with paper drives and other club activities that included family members.
Works recalled how his mother studied in England through a Rotary scholarship years ago and how she and a friend she met there years later exchanged their children to give them an opportunity to experience life and culture in another country. He and sister Abby each spent six months in England.
When others his age were excited to get a driver’s license at age 16, “I was getting a passport,” Works mused.
His master plan had been to obtain a degree at K-State, study abroad for a year and then attend law school, Works said.
A traffic accident interrupted his schedule. He suffered head injuries that required about two years of rehabilitation and led him to take longer to complete his studies at Kansas State, which he concluded in December. He graduated from Iola High in 2008.
He will leave Friday for New Zealand.
Works allowed his upcoming experience was “a testament to Rotary and opportunities that arise because of the organization.”
Works said he will keep an online blog to record his adventures.
IOLA ROTARIAN Ellis Potter, former District 6110 governor, is chairman of the committee that decides Kirchner funding.
“I think we have the best candidate we’ve had in the four or five years I’ve been involved,” Potter said. “Dylan has far and away the best Rotary background of any candidates I’ve seen.
“He will be a great ambassador for Rotary and Iola and I know he will be engaged,” not only his studies but in community activities, he added.
