Student Of The Week: Helena Capital’s McKinlee Mihelish

McKinlee Mihelish is a senior at Capital high. McKinlee’s father kyle is the head coach of the Bruins football team. So when she first started high school, Mihelish wanted to make sure that she created her own name. “They knew me as little Mihelish, I’m just ‘Kinlee coming in but I just know that I have to work hard through everything and just because I’m a coaches kid doesn’t mean I get a pass for anything,” said McKinlee Mihelish. Mihelish does a lot of different activities, but there are a few that really stand out to her. “Me and Aryanna, we both go to the Helena food share warehouse. It’s every Tuesday and we go pack little kid packs for kids. On Wednesday we go to a little 6th-grade girl’s practice and it’s pretty cool because I remember when I was that little and I would see Kenzie Johnston and all these people and they would give me high fives and I just thought it was the coolest thing ever,” said Mihelish. “I think she is one of the best at making kids feel important, making players feel important no matter what age they are. At our summer camps, she is one of the best as far as hands-on and we may have a player who just started playing and she makes them feel like they’re the biggest star on the court,” said bruins basketball coach Katie Garcin-Forba. While McKinlee finishes off her final month of basketball, she has her sites set on her next journey. “I’m interested in the medical field and right now I think I would want to go in the nursing route and become a nurse practitioner, I’ve just been really interested in the medical field for as long as I can remember, I have a bunch of family members who are in the medical field so that kind of has influenced me and then also I really love being around kids so I would love to be in the pediatrics side of that,” said Mihelish. Look out for McKinlee next year in Missoula, as she plans to walk on for the Griz track team.