It's always one step closer and three steps back.

And the love of your life until I am Hi, I'm Ella Layman, and I'm the Catherine Belle Long scholarship winner for 2024. went to South Creek Middle School where Miss Long taught, and then I went here to Lincoln High School My dad is, of course, teacher here.

He's been teacher for a while.

And then my mom was.

Of course, she was also a piano teacher.

And then also two of my sisters.

A music teachers, one in Orlando, one in North Carolina.

So we've done musicals all our life.

Singing at church all our life.

Just music all the time.

I was zoned for Cobb, but I'm going to Lincoln, so my parents wanted me to be able to go to school, where not only do they know the teachers really well for the for a course in theater and dance, but then also where I would make friends that would follow me into high school, because if I went to Cobb and under here, I would just like lose a bunch.

And so, Miss Currie, the course tracks of Creek reached out to my dad and found a way for Miss Long because she lived near me to pick me up.

And then Miss Gray would drive me home.

I was nervous because it was my first day as, like, sixth grade.

And I didn't really know her that well, but she was very welcoming and made it like so.

I wasn't, like, overwhelmed being this new person's car, new person, person's everything.

She always had folk music on and it was very just welcoming and calming.

And then I just remember, like, the smell of coffee every day because she would drink coffee but she was very calm and trusting and supportive.

Like, anytime anyone was having a bad day, they would go to my song.

She was like a lot of people's comfort teachers.

lots of Greek, she would still see every show as an which meant a lot.

And after she passed away and Mickey still saw a bunch of shows I was in because he wanted to do what this song would do for me, which is really meaningful.

I want to do something with a performance major with musical theater.

Whether that's having a job out of that and then still doing community theater, or whatever.

But I'd like to do something with a performance major.

I'm going to TSC for musical theater, and then hopefully after two years, I'll transfer into FSU.

they were announcing all the scholarships and everything.

And then they said the Catherine Belle Lung Scholarship.

And my whole family knew I wanted.

But I didn't.

And so then I really burst into tears because I was like, I knew what that meant.

And it was really cool because then I saw her family that I passed by earlier and didn't recognize because I didn't think like they would be here because they didn't live in Tallahassee and all this stuff.

And so, they announced my name and it was such a surprise, but it was so meaningful.

Was it at graduation or was it at come?

And then, at the convocation, they told us that the scholarship was going to be for a full year.

So you've got a full Because in that household with two parents and four sisters, like, college was a big worry about mine.

Then just like with money wise.

And so it was a big relief to figure out that a year was covered.

Did they still do giving the money to the, taught me a lot of things and made me a better performer.

And there's one quote that she told me that I always hold with me.

She told me that.

That if I do 99% of everything right, I'll always focus on the 1%.

And I need to let that go, because I could have a nearly perfect thing.

And I'll just focus on the one thing I did wrong.

And she was big about not being hard on yourself, even if you did something wrong.

But like, it's okay.

It's who you are.

You still did good.

All the stuff that sounds like something you can take in the rest of