Rex Gay — a senior at Paducah Tilghman High School — hopes to bring the drive he’s shown in academics and sports to a career in dentistry or orthodontics.
Gay is this week’s Murray State University Teen of the Week.
Gay currently holds a 4.39/4.0 cumulative GPA and is enrolled in four AP classes, as well as Early College Academy and Physics Honors. In addition to academic pursuits, he plays varsity football and soccer for Tilghman.
“I’ve always played sports ever since I was three years old, when I started playing soccer,” Gay said. “Whenever I was little, I did every sport like most kids. Then in middle school, it kind of came down to just football and soccer. And it’s just something that I spend a lot of my time focused on, and I’m committed to, and it’s just taught me several life lessons that I take into my everyday life, not just on the field.”
Gay said the biggest lesson he’s learned from sports is perseverance.
“As an athlete, you face a lot of obstacles that teach you that you have to keep going and you have to keep working for what you want, and that’s how it is in life,” he said. “You have to work hard and move on and keep going. Then also teamwork. Not only is that an important thing for athletes on the field, but in your job, you’re going to have to be able to work with other people, and I think that’s something really important that I’ve learned from sports.”
Gay also participates in several extracurricular organizations at Tilghman, like the National Honor Society, student council, Future Business Leaders of America, Beta Club, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Greater Paducah YoungLife and WyldLife. He said a club that has had a particularly strong effect on him is student council.
“I was vice president junior year, and that’s more of a leadership-focused position, and I was in charge of several things in that position,” Gay said. “I was able to use those lessons that I’ve learned from sports.”
He said he often finds himself drawn to leadership positions.
“I really like to be the person that’s in charge, or at least like being in the front and helping other people out,” Gay said. “I think I can be very outgoing when I’m in those positions, and it has the effect that people will listen to me. I also think that I’m very disciplined, that I know what I need to do to get things done when I’m in those roles.”
Gay said that while it can be tiring to maintain that discipline through sports, academics, extracurricular activities and having a job, he finds strength through his faith.
“Just going to God with any of my anxieties and talking to Him through prayer and being in His word is something that really grounds me and keeps me focused,” he said. “It’s a comfort for me that I go and that I rely on Him for stuff.”
He also credits his parents for instilling a strong work ethic in him.
“My parents have always raised me to be like that, and I see that through both of my parents,” Gay said. “They’re very hardworking. Then, I’m just a competitive person, so I like to win. I like to be successful — and just relying on God for His strength and for His comfort and peace of mind keeps me grounded as I do all these things.”
Following graduation, Gay hopes to major in biology at a four-year university while pursuing further education in dentistry or orthodontics. He said he has always been interested in the medical field, but discovered an interest in dentistry through participating in the Governor’s Scholars Program.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “I really loved it. I made a lot of good friends and connections throughout the state of Kentucky. And then, besides the social aspect, I really got to see a lot of healthcare professions in the class that I was in. I was in the healthcare industry focus area, and it was really a great experience to see all these different professionals and what they do every day, and getting to speak with them about how all of the med school stuff goes and everything after that.”