A small group of Denver students came to Coors Field on Thursday for a surprise of a lifetime — a full-ride scholarship to a college of their choosing, provided by the Daniels Fund private charity.

“It’s the best day of the year, truly,” President and CEO of Daniels Fund, Hanna Skandera, said of Thursday’s surprise. “There were kids crying. There were kids running to their parents. There were parents crying.”

The yearly scholarship, started with the creation of Daniels Fund in 1997, awards around 200 students in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming with full-ride scholarships to partner schools of their choosing in the four states or up to $100,000 scholarship to schools outside of the region.

In 2024, 209 exceptional students were selected from the region out of over 3,600 applicants, with 144 coming from Colorado. 

22 Denver-based recipients, along with their parents, were invited to Coors Field on Thursday, unaware of the motive behind the visit. After a tour of the stadium and a speech from Greg Feasel, president of the Colorado Rockies, the scholarships were announced.

“We love investing in our community,” Skandera said, noting that Daniels Fund has awarded over $1 billion in grants and scholarships since 2000. “We have the privilege and honor of supporting amazing young people and organizations that are game changing in our communities.”

Diamonds in the rough

When television executive and sports teams owner Bill Daniels started the Daniels Fund, he strived to give students the “opportunity to live their potential and give them the opportunity to be the best versions of themselves,” Skandera said.

The scholarship itself is based on students with need, character, perseverance and the desire to give back to their community.

The applicants are put through a “competitive” process during selections, meeting with local community leaders for interviews and drafting personal essays. 

The specific community leader judges, based in 30 sites across the four states, choose students who are already working to become leaders and significant members of said communities, according to Skandera. 

Around a third of the winners are first-generation college attendees, she added.

“Lots of scholarships are based solely on merits like grades and volunteer hours,” she said. “This isn’t based solely on grades. It’s also based on how you demonstrate that you do have great perseverance and leadership in the midst of unique and challenging circumstances.”

Kya Leptrone, a recipient of the 2024 scholarship and senior at a high school near Colorado Springs, is a shining example of the values the charity looks for in their winners.

Leptrone was born with a stutter. Her mother, who also has a stutter, noticed the signs by the time Leptrone was three-years-old. She was then placed in speech therapy, but the results weren’t fruitful. 

“A lot of speech pathologists don’t have a lot of exposure to stuttering as it only affects around 1% of the population,” Leptrone said, stating that speech therapy was never very beneficial.

“The main goal they were trying to accomplish in my speech was to make me fluent. I will never reach that goal. Once you stutter into your adolescence, you are likely going to stutter into the rest of your life,” she added.

Leptrone began attending a camp specifically for stuttering in Spokane, Washington when she was 12 years old. It altered her path forever.

“That’s when I had this shift that it’s OK to stutter. The goal is not to gain fluency, but to manage your stutter and stutter comfortably,” she said. “By telling a kid that they have to accomplish something and become completely fluent, that puts a false narrative into their head. It forms this idea that having a stutter is bad.”

Leptrone decided to dedicate her young life to stuttering advocacy, starting a blog and social media presence, working to represent young women with stutters. 

Now, Leptrone’s TikTok account has over 230,000 followers. Her videos have been used by speech pathologists to help clients.

On top of the social media presence, Leptrone has partnered with the National Stuttering Association. She also cofounded a group called Sisters Who Stutter that works to reach women with stutters all over the world.

“Only 1% of people stutter and only a fourth of those are females. It’s a very small demographic,” Leptrone said. “Our voice deserves to be heard. Many people try to silence us, but we are worth that extra time to be listened to. Our stutter does not define our worth.”

Leptrone applied for the scholarship with the desire to become a speech-language pathologist, focusing on stutters and eventually starting her own practice. 

When the scholarships were announced on Thursday, Leptrone was at a JROTC National Air Rifle Championship in Ohio.

The anticipation of the update nagged at the back of her head, but she didn’t let it affect her shooting.

Eventually, she snuck away to check her inbox, creating for a surreal moment she’ll never forget.

“This scholarship means that I will have put myself through college. I will have no student debt,” she said. “That really helps my parents because I am the oldest of four. They also have to help pay my siblings’ tuition. To just know that I’ve not only secured my future but helped secure the future of my family is great.”

Leptrone is just one example of the “amazing” kids chosen for the award, Skandera said.

“These kids are beating the odds, making a difference and they’re going to be leaders, if they are not already,” she concluded.