Lily Dixon graduated from Marquette Senior High School in 2023 and has been doing her hometown proud ever since. (Photo courtesy of Lily Dixon)

MARQUETTE — Lily Dixon graduated from Marquette Senior High School in 2023, attending Michigan State University on a full-ride scholarship. Now, she is continuing her academic career by becoming a finalist for the Truman Scholarship, a prestigious nationwide scholarship which awards $30,000 to college juniors towards their graduate school studies.

“I won a merit-based scholarship competition in high school called the Alumni Distinguished Scholarship, which was a full ride to MSU,” said Dixon. “I wanted a small little arts college, but also Big Ten sports and a flagship research university. I could do all of that at MSU.”

At Michigan State, Dixon is double-majoring in Arts and Humanities and Public Policy, through the Liberal Arts and Social Science Colleges. After graduation she plans to move to Washington D.C. to work in national politics, though her career in public service is already well underway.

“I’ll be working for a congressional candidate in our district, Callie Barr, [this summer]” said Dixon. “I worked for her in her 2024 campaign cycle as deputy field director, and then this year ‘ll be deputy campaign manager for the Upper Peninsula. I’ve always loved her, and I’ve had such a great time working with her. I’m really excited to get back on the team again this summer.”

The Truman Scholarship, then, is the perfect fit for Dixon, as it is traditionally awarded to students who demonstrate exceptional public service and who are pursuing careers in public service.

“I heard about [The Truman Scholarship] back during the Alumni Distinguished Scholarship competition,” said Dixon.
“It was on my radar because it’s one of the only scholarships for undergraduate students that focused on public service rather than STEM majors. I knew that if I wanted to try for one of those national competitions again as an undergraduate, this would be the one that I would really want to focus on.”

The process to be considered for the Truman Scholarship is extraordinarily rigorous. Even to just be recommended for the Scholarship by her university, Dixon had to complete a long application, answering essay questions about her leadership experience as well as her plans for her future career.

“You have to basically plan out the next 30 years of your life,” said Dixon. “Where I’d want to go to grad school, what I’d want to study, who I’d want to work with, what I would want to do right out of grad school, then where I would want to work 10 years from there, and then ultimately 10 years after that. It’s a really interesting application; I’m 21 years old, and everyone knows that you’re probably not going to do exactly what you write down for the next 40 years, but you have to convince the committee that you’re worth investing in and that you are ambitious and that you have clear goals.”

Dixon certainly possesses plenty of ambition and clear goals. Her application focused on her work in juvenile justice, a cause she has considerable passion for.

“I started a program here at Michigan State University called Creative Collaboration with Incarcerated Youth,” said Dixon. “It’s a program where we go and do weekly arts programming at the local Youth Detention Center. Along with that, my residential college here MSU has a big emphasis in education on working and learning from incarcerated populations. I also did a program where I did a poetry prison poetry slam with incarcerated men in the Ionia facility, and I currently work at the Lansing Courthouse on the Juvenile Risk Assessment Study. I do a lot of different things within the realm of juvenile justice.”

This impressive resume was enough to push Dixon through to the finals round of the Scholarship, which she traveled to Chicago for at the end of March. Each year the Truman Scholarship receives 800-900 applications, which have first been vetted by their respective universities. Of those nearly one thousand applications, only 150 finalists are selected, and only about 50 of those finalists are awarded the scholarship. Even just being selected as a finalist, then, is a huge honor.

“I feel super honored to represent my home state of Michigan,” said Dixon. “I am so proud of being a Michiganander, and to represent Michigan State University. I was so excited that so much work paid off, and I’ve had so much support from so many different faculty and departments and peers here at Michigan State University. That goes along with the community support I feel back home in Marquette, from my family and friends and former colleagues.”

“About two weeks ago now, I drove to Chicago and had my big interview there,” said Dixon. “It’s an interesting process because they usually have one person win in every state. They have about 50 to 60 winners a year, and so they group you up geographically. There were 13 finalists for my group; six from Michigan, five from Indiana and two from Illinois, and we all interviewed together in Chicago. It was a really cool opportunity where I got to meet all these other really talented and passionate people; the best in each of their states.”

While the scholarship money for graduate school would greatly benefit Dixon, what she is more excited about is the prospect of being connected with such a prestigious award.

“It’s $30,000 for graduate school, but the real award of it is being part of the Truman community,” said Dixon. “It’s a super powerful community that is so connected and has so many resources.”

Truman Scholars have gone on to become supreme court justices, senators, governors, activists and more. Famous alumni include Neil Gorsuch, Cory Booker and Stacey Abrams.

Dixon has certainly done her hometown proud.

“I think that getting this far is a testimony to how great my education has been,” said Dixon. “I definitely think that my high school teachers that really got me excited about public service, Blythe Raikko and Kristina O’Connor, were two people that started this whole path for me.

“I’d also like to shout out the support I’ve had here at MSU through my residential College of Arts and Humanities and the Honors College here, and the Political Science Department.”

Dixon also noted that she has received considerable support from her family, with an extra push of encouragement coming from her father.

“My dad made a bet with me back in my senior high school, when I was first interested and had this on my radar,” said Dixon. “He told me that if I won the Truman Scholarship, he would get a tattoo of Harry Truman on his body. I really want to win for so many different reasons, but the idea of my dad having a tattoo of Truman on his body is really motivating.”

Dixon will find out whether she has been awarded the scholarship, and whether her dad will be making that tattoo appointment, later this month. In the meantime, though, she has already achieved a remarkable accomplishment.

Annie Lippert can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 550. Her email address is alippert@miningjournal.net.