Physical therapy graduate student Shannon Kendall came to Harding with a unique perspective. Before enrolling in the PT program, Kendall was a professional ballerina in Mobile, Ala., dancing from age 3 until her sophomore year of college. Kendall danced the lead forthe ballet "Dracula" and was involved in intensive summer programs, which included six-week auditions for nationally recognized companies in cities such as San Francisco, Atlanta and New York City. Kendall was accepted into several different ballet companies but chose to live a normal high school life in Alabama and stay involved at the Mobile Ballet Company. "She was very determined," childhood friend Elizabeth Brooks said. "I would see her performances, and she was always striving to be the best, and she was. She worked hard, and she got the roles she wanted." Immediately after she graduated high school, Kendall was accepted into the Alabama Ballet Company in Mobile, Ala., and danced with the company a year. Kendall said one reason she quit ballet was because the cutthroat nature of the industry. Kendall was an 18-year-old in an unfamiliar environment and received a number of difficult and challenging roles. "It's very competitive," Kendall said. "Everyone wants the lead role. It's kind of like everyone is best friends, but at the same time it's like, 'I'll do whatever it takes to be in front of you.' It takes a whole different mindset, and I was never very good at being mean." Though quitting was a difficult decision due to her love for the art of ballet, Kendall knew she needed to make that choice. Her dance coach for seven years, Pam Thompson, said she believed this was a mature decision because it provided Kendall with a backup career plan for she stopped dancing. "A ballet career is short at best, and you're always one injury away from being over," Thompson said. "So you have to have a game plan for after ballet." Thompson insisted that despite the sometimes edgy, competitive nature of ballet, Kendall held a positive, encouraging aura that inspired others. "Everybody loved Shannon," Pam said. "There's sometimes drama that can be associated with jealousy, but there was never any of that for Shannon." After quitting ballet, Kendall attended Harding for one year. She missed the ballet environment though, and returned home for another year of professional ballet before realizing she really wanted to put aside the ballet life for the academic life. After quitting a second time, Kendall took some time to evaluate what she wanted to do for a career. She realized that after dancing for so long, she had developed one perspective of the body and wanted to expand that interest. "After I quit ballet, I didn't know what I wanted to do for two or three years," Kendall said. "One thing I did know was that I enjoyed movement. I had this appreciation for the body as an art form first and foremost. Then I began to take some anatomy classes, and I was able to not only see what the body was capable of artistically but also scientifically." This motivated her to achieve her bachelor's degree in exercise science from the University of Alabama in Birmingham and to ret.urn to Harding to participate in the PT program to become a pediatric physical therapist. Though Kendall closed the ballet chapter of her life, she was able to use everything she had learned about the beauty and strength of the human body in the new physical therapy chapter. Cole Mokry "It was thrilling to be able to be someone other than yourself and to have to portray that character through movement only." PT student Shannon Kendall
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