Mover and shaker, Bullard’s Abbey Sowers stays busy

Published 3:45 pm Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of stories highlighting graduating high school seniors in Smith County.

BULLARD — Growing up in the metroplex, Abigail “Abbey” Sowers said life was a constant go.

While the traffic patterns of Frisco compared to her new home in Smith County are quite different, the Bullard High School senior has remained in motion.

While Tom Petty sang “I won’t back down,” Sowers could easily say, “I won’t slow down.”

From working with children with autism to tutoring an Ukrainian student or raising a goat for FFA and helping rural veterans, Sowers is constantly on the move, adjusting to her new life in East Texas.

“It is a change,” said Sowers, who ranks No. 3 in her class. “At Frisco, it was go go go all the time, constantly running around, constantly doing things. Bullard allowed me to focus more on my religion, my family and what is really meaningful to me in life instead of trying to do a million things at once. I was able to dive deeper into a lot of my passions.”

Moving to Bullard

“My grandparents (Kristi and Tim Plumb) live here and the traffic was getting pretty bad (in Frisco),” Sowers said. “Plus, my parents (Robin and Steve) wanted us (Abbey and her sisters KK and Anna) to have a different experience, rather than living in one place our whole life.”

Moving from a Class 5A school (Frisco Reedy) to a Class 4A (Bullard) may not seem that much different enrollment-wise, but the booming area north of Dallas compared to the Pineywoods is a bit of a change.

“It is very different. I will say there are more cows than people here and I definitely was not used to that,” she said. “The country roads are different. I completely had to re-learn how to drive. The schools are also different. My old school was very academic, but it could be kind of cut-throat, whereas Bullard has more of a sense of community. I was really surprised when my counselor, principal and teachers knew my name. At my old school I could not pick my principal out of a lineup.”

Since moving to East Texas before her junior year, Sowers has left her mark in Panther Land.

“(Abbey) moved in before her junior year and she worked hard to get involved, plus taking challenging classes to move into the top 10% (her class),” said Amy Pawlak, Bullard ISD Public Relations Coordinator.

Out of her comfort zone

Change is hard, but Sowers was determined it would be smooth. She wanted to fit in and she got involved.

“I didn’t feel at home right away because it was very different, but my dad suggested I get into agriculture,” she said. “I wasn’t really sure about it. I was apprehensive because I knew nothing about that after living in the city. So in my junior year I asked people what is the absolutely the hardest animal I could show as part of (Future Farmers of America). We didn’t have enough land for a steer so they said goats are really stubborn. They were like ‘I don’t know if you could handle it though. You are from the city, you might want to choose something easier, like a rabbit.’

“That’s not really my personality, so I said ‘I’m choosing a goat.’”

She said her mom got excited and started sending her pictures of “little, tiny cute Nigerian Dwarf goats,” Sowers laughed. “That is not what you show at all. When I got my goat I said ‘oh my gosh, this thing is huge.’ It was the size of a dog. I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into … I showed up in bright blue rain boots to the barn. I was the only one not driving a truck.”

Fast-forward, it was a valuable lesson.

“I learned a lot from that experience,” she said. “My goat stayed alive. I named him Kevin and we competed in a shows and I had an amazing time. FFA really helped me acclimate to the community, even though I did not know what I was doing the entire time. I just tried my best and it was a lot of fun.”

For new students, she says, “Join the FFA and raise a goat.”

Working with others

When not tending to Kevin, Sowers is a member of Peer Buddies and works with children who have autism.

Since sixth grade, she has been involved with Peer Buddies, a program directed at providing “Applied Behavior Analysis-based social skills intervention for individuals with social difficulties by pairing with same-aged Peer Buddy volunteers to create an inclusive space for learning essential social skills for students with special needs.”

“It is about being a friendly face in the hallway,” Sowers said. “… just to help their school day be better. Sometimes high school is really scary in general. So I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in their position.”

Also, she volunteers each week to work with children who have autism. Sowers worked with twins (one who was non-verbal) in Frisco for three years and with a kindergarten student here in East Texas for more than a year.

And the summer of 2023, she reached out to professors at UT Tyler and to area psychiatrists, eventually landing a research assistant position to look into how to improve health care for rural veterans.

Looking ahead

Sowers originally wanted to major in psychology, but after “walking into Ms. (Elizabeth) Hardin’s AP biology class, I fell in love with that.”

She went against family tradition (her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins have all attended the University of Missouri) and decided to attend Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She also considered Rice University.

“I love the campus, the lake, the mountains, the golf course,” Sowers said. “My grandpa and dad can’t wait to visit and (play the course).

“Furman offers a lot of opportunities while maintaining the southern culture that I am used to and grew up with.”

She also noted Furman, a private liberal arts university that was founded in 1826, has many chances to study abroad.

Sowers has already talked with a fellow student about going to Cambodia and volunteering at the children’s hospital there, learning about how to set up a hospital, the administration and health care.

The soon-to-be Bullard graduate is thinking about majoring in biomedical sciences or Neuroscience.

Ukrainian friend

Sowers also found time to help tutor an Ukrainian student in English.

She got involved with ENGin. The nonprofit organization said it is “changing the world one conversation at a time to provide international support for Ukraine. We connect English-speaking volunteers online with motivated Ukrainians for online speaking practice and cross-cultural exchange.”

Sowers connected with Alina, 18. While the Bullard student was eating breakfast, Alina was having dinner. The two would converse on the culture of the United States and Ukraine, plus Sowers helped her with her English.

They would meet once a week via Zoom.

Eventually, Alina had to flee the country as her school was bombed. Her parents stayed in Ukraine and Alina relocated to Prague, Czech Republic to study at university.

The two learned a lot about their countries and the culture.

“She was very sad to learn I didn’t ride horses to school,” Sowers said. “That was what she heard about Texas. She was worried I would be hit by tumbleweeds. She had watched western movies.”

While Sowers taught her language, Alina taught her about cooking.

They hope to maintain a life-long friendship.

“I am passionate about education and it was difficult to see how many kids don’t have access to education,” Sowers said. “It made me grateful to be able to go to a safe school with wonderful peers and wonderful faculty.”

John D. Rockefeller said, “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”

Sowers must feel she has done just that as she embraced the change with the move to East Texas.

“It was definitely a blessing to go from Frisco to Bullard,” she said.

Sowers will graduate alongside her fellow seniors at 8 p.m. Friday at Panther Stadium in Bullard.