When Rafe got his Terry Letter

by Rafe Royall

It was Monday April 11th, 2016, the day I was supposed to receive an email from the Terry Foundation telling me if I had received the scholarship. I didn’t sleep a wink that night because I was so nervous, and that just continued at school. I was more jittery that day than I can ever remember being, it got to the point where I couldn’t pay attention during class and I was checking my email every five minutes. Then at around two o’clock that afternoon two of my best friends who had interviewed for the Terry Scholarship at Texas A&M received their emails telling them that they had not gotten the scholarship. And just like that my anxiety went through the roof, I eventually went to bed still without getting my email.
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After the second sleepless night in a row I went to school and it went exactly like the day before. I was checking my email every two minutes, and I was starting to think something was very wrong. I checked my scholarship application to make sure I had put down the right email address; I called yahoo tech support to make sure there weren’t any problems with my email account. By time lunch came around I was a complete basket case, I couldn’t even eat I was so nervous. Then at about 1:30 that afternoon I opened my email to the most amazing sight I had ever seen, my Terry letter! 

My eyes started to water up, the air flew out of my lungs, my hands covered my face, and I could not say a single word. I turned around to my best friend who was sitting behind me, uncovered my face and mouthed, “I got it!” but no words came out! So he took my computer, took one look at the screen and immediately yelled at the top of his lungs, so before I could even say a word everyone in class knew I had gotten the scholarship! As soon as I could get out of the pile of people I walked outside and called my parents. Mom screamed so loud that she about blew my ear off!

Now, I have had thousands of people cheering for me. I have run the football in for a touchdown to win a district championship, I have done things that I never could have in my wildest dreams, but none of them compared to the feeling I had at that moment!

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