Kate Onks, our registrar here at Sahuaro, got her start at a small town school named Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee. “…If you’ve ever heard the song Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker, they say Johnson City, Tennessee, in it. That’s like the only thing that Johnson City has going for it,” she says. She was born and raised there, just like her parents. Regarding her high school, she only went there for 2 years before transferring to an online school named North Star Academy.
During in-person high school, Onks participated in the marching band as a part of the drumline section. Once she transferred to online school, she started working as a waitress. She says she transferred because, “…I had a lot of issues with anxiety and depression and stuff. And I was actually the youngest of 5, and they had all graduated and literally, they had left the house. So, I was just kind of in a weird headspace. So then my parents actually let me do online school for my last 2 years, under the condition that I worked.”
Onks comes from a big mixed family from Tennessee. Her parents have been divorced since she was 3, and they both remarried when she was around 7 years old. Her stepdad has 3 kids from his 1st marriage, her dad has a kid from his 1st marriage, and her stepmom has 4 kids from her 1st marriage. She’s the youngest of 10! Onks shares, “I’ve always grown up with like a pretty big family. I’m pretty blinded, and it’s weird being away from them right now. But yeah, I love my family, big family. It can get a little crazy at times, but yeah, I’ve got a whole bunch of nieces and nephews now, of course, because they have so many siblings and stuff.”
Despite being a huge family girl, she came out here for school because “…my good friend, his family is from here, actually. And so he wanted to come to school here and applied, and then I was just like oh, I want to come with you!”
During college, Onks attended the University of Arizona and earned a dual degree in Psychology and Gender and Women’s Studies, along with two minors in classics and business administration. During school, Kate says she, “…worked. I worked. So, I was in the unfortunate situation where I had to work while I was in school, but like I said before, it was the program that I was working for. I did 20 hours a week with them, and then of course I was a full-time student, so pretty much any time I wasn’t in class or doing homework, I was working. I tried to have a little bit of fun while I was in college, but it was quite difficult. I personally wasn’t in any clubs, just because none of them really piqued my interest. It’s really hard when you’re in school to be working.”
The program she is referring to was a mentor program offered through the psychology department. She was a program coordinator and ran the administrative side of things to help run the program. She worked with other students there for 3 1/2 years before graduating!
Though she didn’t work the summer after college, Kate found the job as our registrar sometime in September and has been here ever since! As our registrar, Onks, does, “…I pretty much make sure that your transcripts have all of the right courses that you took and you have the right grade for it. If we have transfer students, I work to try to get those records from other schools. I do a lot with diplomas. I’m actually ordering our diplomas right now. I post report cards, just basically anything with your entire student record.”
Regarding life outside of work, Onks says, “I watch a lot of TV, I read, I just got a public library card recently. I’ll go hang out with my friends on the weekends and stuff, either we’ll like go downtown, or I’ll go up to my friends, and we’ll have like game nights and stuff, and those are fun. I’ll try and visit with my family if I can. I actually was up in Scottsdale this weekend because my mom was visiting, because she was out of state. I go to the gym pretty frequently. I started doing that when COVID happened because I was like, I’m going to go crazy if I don’t do something. So then I started going to the gym. I go to the Planet Fitness on Swan and Broadway if anybody sees me there!” Her favorite books consist of The Help and Project Hail Mary; her favorite TV Shows are Criminal Minds, Gossip Girl, Breaking Bad, and Percy Jackson.
In the future, she plans to potentially move to Phoenix, but for now, she’s trying to figure out how to get her master’s degree without going into debt. Onks is interested in project management, human resources, and labor law, and is also getting her MBA (Master of Business Administration). Sahuaro is extremely thankful to Kate for keeping all of our records straight!
