Hard-working ‘nerd’ a Marshall Scholar

At 22, Sheena Chestnut’s resume is impeccable.

For instance, she scored a 1530 on the SAT. She’s also a State of Washington and National Merit Scholar.

Chestnut, a Ferris High School graduate and a senior at Stanford where a former presidential Cabinet member is one of her advisers, has now been named a Marshall Scholar.

For 2005, 43 students were chosen nationally for the honor this month. Essentially, the program is a British version of the Rhodes Scholar program. The Marshall scholarships allow students to continue their studies for two to three years at a British university of their choosing. About $60,000 in costs will be covered for tuition, research and living expenses.

Chestnut returned to Spokane for Christmas break this month.

While sitting in her South Hill home that overlooks Browne’s Mountain and a field where her family horses used to run, Chestnut confesses something.

“I was kind of nerd,” she said. “Actually, I’m still a nerd.”

Oh, and she’s klutzy, she said.

In fact, at about the age of 8, when her parents signed her up for Scottish dance lessons, her instructor said she had the least amount of natural ability of any student she had taught.

“When I started I was told to take up piano instead,” Chestnut said.

“I didn’t really mean it,” said Elizabeth Coyle, her longtime instructor, whose accent conveys her Scottish homeland. “It was just a Scottish thing they used to say.”

Highland dancing ranks among the most technical and athletically demanding dance disciplines, Coyle said. Success doesn’t come easy. “It’s the only blooming thing she’d have to work hard at in her life,” Coyle said.

Chestnut started reading at the age of 4. Some of the books she read are still in her family’s home, including a favorite, the Berenstain Bears. She moved on to “Little House on the Prairie,” and “Chronicles of Narnia.” Most of her youngest years were spent reading or in dance class.

In her first dance competition, Chestnut finished second and third in individual dances.

Coyle remembers the young girl saying, “I really want to know why I didn’t get first.” And Coyle replied, “Well, there is such a thing as hard work and practice. And that was that.”

That’s a key moment, Chestnut said, when she realized how hard work could pay off. She also saw it modeled at home, she said.

“My parents both work very hard,” Chestnut said.

Her parents, Tim and Janet Chestnut, are both physicians and Ferris graduates. Sheena is the oldest of four. One brother is a student at the University of Idaho. The others are in Spokane schools.

Chestnut’s parents installed a dance floor with a barre and mirror in their basement where she’d spend many hours practicing. On the wall of her bedroom today are numerous plaques and medals from her regional and national successes.

There’s always been a drive in her, her mother says. It’s served her well.

She placed in the top six in the United States for three years, Coyle said.

In the fall, Chestnut heads to England to pursue a master’s degree in international relations.

“I’ve always been interested in Asia,” she said. She started with South Korea, which is the first country of her adopted sister.

She got a chance to interview one of three South Korean presidential candidates, Chung Mong-joon, while at Stanford. For her senior year, she took a Mandarin Chinese language class, which flabbergasted her friends. She already speaks a touch of Korean.

“I didn’t want to get bored my senior year,” she said.

Through all her hard work, reading and experiences, she learned that once you invest the initial work in something and make it known what your interests are, people will respond.

“Once I found something I was interested in, I’ve had a couple people give me a nudge in the right direction,” she said.

One of her advisers, Bill Perry, secretary of defense under President Clinton, encouraged her to pursue research grants in her paper on North Korea’s involvement with transnational crime.

Her dream job is to one day be a national security adviser.

For her paper, she’s trying to determine the likelihood of North Korea selling nuclear weapons to terrorists.

“No one’s come up with a for-sure answer because so little is known about North Korea,” she said.

Much of the material is classified. She’s already done interviews with officials in Washington, D.C. Now she’s scheduling interviews in New York, Tokyo and Seoul.

In her leisure time, Chestnut reads. She’s into country music, which she plays for her college roommate who’s from India and prefers Hindi music.

There is a cost for being so well read.

“The tradeoff is I’m a pop culture moron,” she said.

Not like that’s going to stand in her way of making it to the National Security Council someday.