Amy Freeland Charts Her Own Path as a Datha & Gene Smith Fellow

​Amy Freeland had a plan. Growing up in Preston County in a large family with twelve siblings, she had watched education pass her family by. None of her older siblings had gone directly to college after high school. Her family doubted whether there was a way for her to go.

Amy’s answer was simple and resolute: “I’m going to get my whole college paid for.” She did.

Amy’s path to Fairmont State began in a high school health foundations class her sophomore year. She liked it. She stayed with it through senior year, completing a medical assistant program. She knew she wanted to go further and nursing felt right, but the route there was anything but certain.

Athletics had always been part of her life. She had run track since her freshman year of high school and dreamed of competing in college. A scholarship offer from Potomac State nearly pulled her in a different direction. Then she chose Fairmont State instead, thinking she might simply start a club track team.

Two weeks after move-in, Fairmont State announced the launch of a new indoor track program.

“I was so happy,” she says. “I knew I needed to join.” 

She did, and she earned an athletic scholarship that became one piece of a larger funding puzzle she had promised her family she would solve.

Amy had heard about the Datha & Gene Smith Fellows Program and the Bridge program – a summer
immersion for Fellows – through a high school friend. She was nervous about attending college, but the fellowship came with financial support that she needed, so she applied.

“It actually wasn’t that bad,” she says about the Bridge experience. “It made me feel more comfortable being in college. I didn’t know anything about attending college and the Bridge program gave me that.”

Among the week’s highlights: a whitewater rafting trip to the New River Gorge. Amy does not love water. She held on for dear life and came out of the experience with an understanding that she can do anything with commitment and perseverance. 

By the time the broader freshman class arrived, Amy already had a community. She had found her people.

In her first semester, Amy made the Dean’s List while running track, working for the athletic department, and keeping the kind of schedule that would exhaust most people. During the spring 2026 term, Mondays were her light day. Tuesdays and Thursdays she had three classes, a lift session in the strength and conditioning gym, and a shift at work. She is pursuing a pathway toward nursing, with her sights set on pediatrics.
 
The Datha & Gene Smith Fellows program coordinator, Lauren Pearson, does not hide her admiration. “She joined track, she works for the athletic department, her grades have been great – she has been a big success.”

Amy is the first person in her immediate family to attend college directly out of high school. That fact sits with her, not as a burden, but as a point of pride she holds on behalf of everyone who came before her.

When asked what she would say to the donors whose generosity helped make her first year possible – the scholarship dollars, the fellowship support, the funded resources she may never fully trace back to a specific name – Amy does not hesitate.

“I would thank them for giving me the opportunity to go to college. And for making my dream come true.”

She is a rising sophomore. She has years ahead of her. And she is, by every measure, exactly where she planned to be.

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