Rhodes Scholarship another achievement for BYU student who calls Henderson home

As a teenager, Ryan Max Rowberry had the potential of one day becoming a concert pianist, but that was not his dream.

Rowberry, who then lived in Colorado but now calls Henderson home, asked his parents if they would allow him to quit playing the piano competitively if he won a major state classical piano championship.

"I thought Ryan would do no better than third, possibly second, so I agreed," said his father, David Rowberry, the institute director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at UNLV, where he has taught religious studies since 1993.

Ryan Rowberry, now 23, worked hard and won the event. Although he still occasionally tickles the ivories for fun, that was -- as promised -- his last competition.

If a person would work so hard just to quit something, it would come as no surprise that he would be as successful achieving something he really wanted.

Such hard work and dedication paid off last month, when Rowberry, a senior at Brigham Young University, became one of 32 American college students to earn a Rhodes Scholarship. He will graduate from BYU in Provo, Utah, this spring and go to Oxford University in England this fall.

Rowberry credits much of his success to the support of his parents, the encouragement of his six brothers and sisters and his strong moral upbringing.

"My family and my religion have been most important to me," Rowberry said at a family gathering at his parents' Green Valley home Christmas week. "Having a good relationship with my family and my spirituality have helped me understand my own self-worth."

Three brothers and one sister also attend BYU. Another sister attends Green Valley High School. His youngest sister attends Greenspun Junior High.

Like Rowberry, who placed fourth in the triple jump at the Colorado state track meet his senior year, all of the siblings are athletes, musicians and honor students.

Rowberry, who wants to one day be a teacher, works on the "Canterbury Tales" Project at BYU. He translates from Old English the works of the scribes who copied 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer's work.

Rowberry's work on that project and his 3.99 grade point average, impressed the Rhodes committee.

"They asked a number of questions about the 'Canterbury Tales' Project during the interviews," Rowberry said. "Naturally, one of the reasons I want to go to England is to see the manuscripts that were copied from Chaucer's work. It's where it all began.

"None of what Chaucer actually wrote still exists. It was all copied by scribes, who were in it for the buck. If a scribe worked for a politician, his translation had a political slant to it. If he worked for a religious leader, that translation had a religious slant to it."

Rowberry not only speaks Old English but also German. He spent his two-year Mormon mission in Germany.

His mother, Janis, said her son's interest in medieval poetry dates from when he was a toddler and his late grandfather, Max Rowberry, read Chaucer to him in Old English. She said Max taught her son to read at age 3.

Rowberry's parents say that while they guided their children down the right path, they never tried to push them into anything they did not want to do.

"My wife and I have always felt it is our job to support the things our children do, because our family is the most important thing in our lives," David Rowberry said. "We read to them, played games together. Kids need support."

Ryan Rowberry is the first to admit he is not the smartest kid in his family: "When it comes to standardized tests, my (oldest) brother Michael always got the highest scores."

And his siblings do not appear to be jealous of Ryan's recent success.

"We have always encouraged each other," Brandon Rowberry, 24, said. "Although education is important in our home, it has never been a competition. We were asked only to do as well as we could."

Brandon and Michael, 26, each are working on their master's degrees in organizational behavior at BYU. Michael plays the piano and trumpet and was on the football team. Brandon is a choir singer and a drummer and also played football.

"Ryan and I are two totally different people," said 21-year-old Justin Rowberry, a BYU sophomore who plays violin and piano and was on the Green Valley High wrestling team.

"While he is more into history, I am into the sciences and biology. I have no desire to go to England, while that works wonderfully for him. Ryan wants to be a professor, I want to go to medical school. The challenges are just different for us."

All four boys are Eagle Scouts.

Shauntelle Rowberry, 20, a BYU junior who plays the piano and flute and was on the volleyball, track and swim teams, agrees with Justin: "Going to England is something that Ryan was destined to do. I have other goals and interests."

In fact, Shauntelle has left for India to begin a four-month field study of that country's religion and folk tales.

Rounding out the Rowberry clan are Janae, 16, a Green Valley High junior who plays the piano and sings and is a member of the volleyball and track teams, and Kristy, 12, a Greenspun sixth-grader who plays the piano and flute and is a member of the swim and soccer teams.

Officials at BYU, where Rowberry became the school's latest Rhodes Scholar -- the last was in 1991 -- naturally are proud of his accomplishments.

"Ryan is a very interesting young man with a specific and unique interest in medieval history," BYU law professor Brett Scharffs, also a Rhodes Scholar, said.

"But he is not just a library dweller. An important part of the Rhodes selection process is that the student is well-rounded -- athletics, community service, etc."

John Tanner, BYU English Department chairman, said Rowberry exemplifies BYU's high standards: "He is one of our best students and is well prepared for the program that he'll pursue at Oxford."

Paul Thomas, a BYU associate professor of English who selected Rowberry as the supervisor of the 'Canterbury Tales' Project, said: "The Rhodes honor is given to those people who make a difference -- and Ryan is one of those people."

T.J. Henderson, Rowberry's track coach at Rangeview High School in Aurora Colo., where Rowberry leaped 44 feet 4 1/2 inches in the triple jump, was not surprised by the young man's post-high school achievements.

"Ryan was an incredible overachiever with average physical ability who became a champion because of his work ethic," Henderson said. "We had kids with five times the athletic ability on the team who never touched him because he was willing to work for his success."

Rowberry, who was born in Ogden, Utah, also played two years on the Rangeview basketball team and was valedictorian in 1993, the year he moved with his family to Henderson. He received a full scholarship to BYU.

While on his mission to Hamburg, Germany, Ryan developed a German-language instruction course to help Nigerian refugees become self-sufficient in Germany.

The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest of the international study awards available to American students. It was created in 1902 in the will of Cecil Rhodes, British philanthropist and colonial pioneer.

The 32 recent recipients went through a rigorous three-stage process and were chosen from 909 applicants endorsed by 310 colleges and universities.

Each scholarship is valued at $25,000 a year and covers full tuition and fees and provides a stipend to cover living and travel expenses.

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