Saint Mary's Newsroom

WINONA, Minn. — Mateo Means enjoyed a memorable freshman year as a member of the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota men’s soccer team.

But those memories paled in comparison to the eye-opening experience he had the chance to be a part of this past July.

Means was selected to be a member of the FC Dallas Special Olympics team that competed in the first-ever Unified Cup — a 24-team tournament that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Special Olympics.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Means, who started all 18 games during his freshman season with the Cardinals last year. “I had an amazing time with all my teammates and having the opportunity to represent Texas and the USA on a national scale.

“It was fun to meet different people from around the world and to have the opportunity to play against different countries.”

A volunteer in the Special Olympics Texas Program for the past several years, Means was one of the team’s “partners,” those individuals who were selected to play that did not have intellectual disabilities. Each team could only have five “partners” on the field at the same time, the other six athletes were those with intellectual disabilities.

“It was really fun traveling with the team to a different city,” said Means, noting the Unified Cup was played in Chicago — where the first-ever Special Olympic Games took place. “Some of the athletes had never been on an airplane, or traveled to another city before, so it was fun experience that with them for the first time.

“All the teams that played in the Unified Cup stayed in the same hotel. It was interesting and unique to see all the different cultures in the same place.”

Means was a starter in all three of its Unified Cup games for FC Dallas, which went 1-2 — falling to Russia 3-0 in the opening game, before beating Canada (2-1) and losing to United Arab Emirates (7-0).

“It was a great experience for me, but was even more amazing for the athletes with intellectual disabilities; they had the time of their lives,” Means said. “We got to play at the Chicago Fire Pitch, which is the training facility for the major league soccer team in Chicago, and also got to go to many other events outside of soccer — including bowling with the teams from Russia and Canada.

“It was an experience I will never forget, and I hope to encourage our (men’s soccer) team and the Saint Mary’s community to volunteer, to make an impact on someone’s life in a positive way.”

Sophomores Anna Dale and Sarah Hardy share more than a passion for music. They also share a residence hall room at Saint Mary’s University and now the title of Elevator Pitch Competition winners.

Beating out 26 other elevator pitches, Dale and Hardy also share the ability to professionally present an entrepreneurial passion in less than 90 seconds.

As both students are pursuing leadership minors, they share a few classes. It was in their persuasion and advocacy class where they came up with the idea of “Ensemble,” a nonprofit organization which would provide children and young adults with a venue to learn and enjoy music.

“We realized that a lot of music programs are losing funding or being eliminated completely, even at the elementary level. Kids aren’t getting the opportunity to pursue music,” explained Hardy.

Dale and Hardy went through the steps of forming a nonprofit, including creating a mission statement, writing a grant letter of inquiry, and even creating a board of directors.

“Ensemble would be an after-school program that would allow students, primarily in the Twin Cities metro area, to come and learn different instruments and styles of music taught by volunteers,” Hardy said. “The instruments would come from donations, as we would find people who maybe don’t play their instruments anymore or have them laying around and would be willing to donate them to our nonprofit.”

“School is so focused on math and science,” said Dale. “Having a place for them to go and be creative would be a good opportunity for kids.”

Anna Dale presents during the Elevator Pitch Competition.

Dale and Hardy pitched their Ensemble idea in the largest Saint Mary’s Elevator Pitch Competition ever. Hosted by the Kabara Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, the semi-annual Elevator Pitch Competition gives students an opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges and win cash prizes.

“One of the questions the judges asked us was what the next step would be, and we said it would be applying for a grant that would help us secure a building, start the donation process for youth instruments, and find volunteers in the community,” Dale said.

The judges panel was comprised of several professors from different disciplines, including communications, education, business, and psychology. As they listened to students give their pitches, they looked for things like knowledge of what they’re pitching, overall enthusiasm and excitement about the product or idea, public speaking skills, and memorization.

“As someone who memorizes things for a living, I felt pretty prepared,” said Dale, a musical theatre major from Cottage Grove, Minn. “The two of us were really behind our nonprofit idea.”

It’s no surprise Dale and Hardy, who are also in choir together, were successful at pitching their idea to the judges panel. Before competing, they looked at who was judging and how they could appeal to them. Hardy explained, for example, that they mentioned how music can help with brain development to appeal to the psychology professor judges.

Dale said the skills she applied to the competition will be beneficial in her future musical theatre career, which hopefully includes a position at the Children’s Theatre Company or Chanhassen Dinner Theatres.

“Looking at my future, it’s going to be a lot of auditioning,” said Dale. “Something I can take away from this is to research casting directors to select which monologue or song to pick.”

Hardy, a psychology major from Hastings, Minn., is also pursuing a criminal justice minor. She hopes to someday work in a juvenile rehabilitation center and bring music into that setting.

“This was something neither Anna or I had done before,” Hardy said. “We’re both very passionate about music, and now we’re like, ‘Oh, wow. This is something we could actually do in the future.’ It helped us realize where our hearts are and how we want to make a difference for other people.”

The two students both plan to put at least some of their $250 winnings from the competition toward Christmas gifts.

And although they were already close, the competition no doubt brought them closer together. Hardy said the experience just “confirmed our friendship even more.”

Sarah Hardy (left) and Anna Dale

Top: Sarah Hardy presents during the Elevator Pitch Competition. 

Though she doesn’t yet have the credentials M.D. behind her name, Saint Mary’s rising senior Kynzie Smedsrud is already collaborating on potential lifesaving research — research that could one day help women fighting breast cancer.

Smedsrud’s summer internship at Gundersen Medical Foundation’s Kabara Cancer Research Institute is giving her a hands-on experience that is far exceeding her expectations.

A biochemistry major from Luverne, Minn., Smedsrud is a Saint Mary’s University Fellow at Gundersen, an academic collaboration brought about through 1958 alumnus Dr. Jon Kabara (now deceased) and his wife Betty, founders of the Kabara Cancer Research Institute in La Crosse, Wis.

Using a variety of techniques, Smedsrud is working in the lab and researching the effect that breast cancer treatments have on a novel fusion gene. “I’m gaining experience with a lot of firsthand advanced techniques that there just isn’t enough time to do at Saint Mary’s,” she said, adding that some of her labs can take up to eight hours, much more time than is available during a regular course’s lab period.

As a side project, Smedsrud has also had the chance to work on some plasmid engineering as well. “I never thought I’d be able to say that I’ve cloned a gene,” she said.

The experience at Gundersen is giving Smedsrud an opportunity to see what choices she has as she looks toward her future. Smedsrud intends to apply to medical school this fall, a dream she set her sights on in the ninth grade, and will hopefully start continuing her education the following year. “This internship is incredibly important on the path for getting into medical school,” she said.

Smedsrud hasn’t decided what area of medicine she wants to specialize in yet, but this internship has shown her potential options.

“I’m very thankful for this opportunity,” Smedsrud said, also acknowledging her gratitude for Jon and Betty Kabara, Saint Mary’s faculty and the individuals she is working with at Gundersen. “They have taught me so much. It’s an irreplaceable experience.”

She credited Dr. Debra Martin’s Biochemistry lab course with preparing her for this internship the most, although she noted that she had valuable hands-on chemistry courses as well. Saint Mary’s professors in general gave her the “preparation and basic knowledge,” in addition to the practical ability to give solid scientific presentations and maintain an organized lab notebook — skills and knowledge that she is using to fuel her success now.

Just as Saint Mary’s prepared her for the internship, thanks to the internship, Smedsrud may very well have a head start on her biology courses next year.

The internship is giving Smedsrud a deeper knowledge of cancer, something she admits she didn’t fully have prior to her internship.

“I didn’t really know much about cancer coming into this fellowship. All I knew was that it’s a terrible disease and detrimental to so many people,” she said.

Now, Smedsrud is able to recognize how each task that she is doing in her internship is valuable in the fight against cancer. “When you’re in the nuts and bolts of it, doing the lab work, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing much,” she said. “But when you step back, you realize that the extent science can help people is incredible. I’m grateful for being able to be a part of this research that has the chance to potentially help someone. It’s incredibly surreal.”

Written by Courteney Jacob ’19

Photo courtesy of Gundersen Health