Two of Arizona’s best and brightest are headed to Flagstaff this fall to become Lumberjacks—Cianna Brooks and Grace Smithson.
The two top achievers are part of the 20-person class of 2025 Flinn Scholars, a coveted merit-based award that covers eight semesters of tuition, fees, housing and meals and even provides funds for study abroad and professional development. Brooks and Smithson beat out 1,100 other high school seniors to score the Flinn Foundation-supported scholarship, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Learn more about these two impressive incoming students as they prepare for freshman year.
Cianna Brooks
Most kids complain about math class—the convoluted word problems, the endless homework, the square roots. Not Cianna Brooks.
The Sunrise Mountain High School grad from Phoenix knew from an early age that math would play a central role in whatever career she chose. She loved the subject in all its forms: algebra, geometry, even sports medicine. She has her eye on NAU’s biomedical sciences major and hopes to minor in business—that way, she’ll gather all the knowledge she needs to someday open her own dental office.
“My mom is my inspiration,” Brooks said. “She’s in school right now doing clinical rotations while also working two jobs and taking care of three kids by herself. She works very hard to support us.”
To match her mom’s hustle, Brooks turned another of her passions, baking, into a side gig at age 11.
“It all started when I needed to raise money for church camp, which was out of state,” Brooks said. “I wanted to make the money myself instead of asking my mom. I started baking cookies and selling them.”
Seven years later, Cici’s Cookies has expanded into cupcakes, cake pops and cheesecakes—and yes, she’ll be taking orders from her dormmates in Flagstaff. But that’s not all she’ll be up to at NAU: An avid athlete, Brooks and her “chaotic, hilarious” friends plan to join the intramural rugby team.
Brooks still remembers the moment she found out she’d become a Flinn Scholar: “One day, I was watching a film with my flag football team, and I got the phone call. I was overwhelmed with joy; my team and I were all celebrating together. Then I went home and told my mom, and she started crying.”
Grace Smithson
Believe it or not, before Pinetop-Lakeside’s Grace Smithson developed her love of learning, she thought school was boring.
“It felt like we were doing the same thing over and over,” Smithson said. “There was so much memorization.”
Then along came Adam Reeck, who teaches Advanced Placement Human Geography at Blue Ridge High School.
“He taught me how to take a different perspective on the world,” Smithson said. “It’s not about memorizing facts; it’s about learning more about yourself and the world around you to help people out and make yourself a better person.”
Learning from Reeck inspired the teen to consider a career that would make a positive impact on others’ lives. After spending the last two years working at a kids’ summer camp, she settled on a career in teaching. After all, it runs in the family.
“My mom is an elementary school librarian, and my grandma was a teacher,” she said. “They’re great educators because they do their best to let every kid from every kind of background know they are valued and capable of doing awesome things. If you can change someone else’s world as a teacher, that’s a pretty amazing thing to do.”
Smithson plans to balance her education studies at NAU with a healthy dose of creativity. A self-described “theater kid” who was named one of the top 10 best actresses at the ASU Gammage High School Musical Theatre Awards this year, she hopes to explore the worlds of Lumberjack theater, choral music, dance and creative writing.
“I like making my own worlds,” Smithson said. “I like to take audiences to a different place for a little bit and let them see something cool and crazy and fun.”
Smithson said she chose to take her Flinn Foundation funds to NAU because the Flagstaff mountain campus isn’t so different from her own pine-filled, four-season hometown, where she grew up with four younger brothers and a property filled with chickens and goats.
“The feel of the town is similar to mine,” she said. “It’s a comforting, safe place.”
Jill Kimball | NAU Communications
(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu