Something clicked when Brittany Boelter Reps ’11 first met Pauline Knight.
The occasion was an interview for the WSU Foundation Board Scholarship. Reps was a high school senior from Sartell, Minnesota. Knight was a longtime supporter of Winona State and member of the Foundation Board Scholarship Committee who regularly reviewed students for one of the university’s most prestigious aid awards.
Now, nearly seven years later, their instant affinity has developed into a deep and lasting friendship. So much so that Reps asked Knight and her husband, Harland, to sit in the family section at her wedding last October.
One of the first things that Reps when she arrived on campus for her freshman year was to email Pauline Knight asking her to serve as a mentor. “She had so much wisdom to share,” says Reps.
“I was equally taken by Brittany and her maturity,” recalls Knight.
Reps and the Knights have since enjoyed countless visits and lunches. The relationship runs so deep that, beginning with her freshman year, Reps has celebrated each of her birthdays with the Knight family, including this year when her new husband Mike Reps joined the party.
Knight has gotten to know many students through her work with the WSU Foundation, and says she enjoys seeing them develop and mature at such an important time in their lives. “I hope that Brittany and all of the students we’ve known feel we have given them a lot of support,” says Knight.
Now working as a surgical nurse at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Reps says she has “also seen how Pauline and her family have changed over the years of our friendship.”
One of the biggest things Reps has learned from the Knights is the interest they take in others and how they make a big difference by remembering the little things. The way they live their lives has guided her as she grows into her nursing career.
“Being genuine with those I care for, and taking an interest in them as people who have lives outside the hospital, that’s what I try to do every day,” says Reps. “Pauline certainly took that kind of interest in me, and I try to live up to her example.”
