P.E.I. student overcomes concussion, wins $100K scholarship

Not long ago Samuel Lowe, a student at Grace Christian School in Charlottetown, thought his school career was over.

Now, he is one of just 30 Loran scholars for 2021, prevailing in a competition that attracted 6,000 applicants. The scholarship is valued at $100,000 and will carry him through four years of university.

"It's … an honour to be recognized and to be believed in and invested in like this," Lowe told Mainstreet P.E.I. host Matt Rainnie.

And it's an award that would have come as a surprise to him just a couple of years ago. While playing hockey in Grade 10, Lowe suffered a concussion, and missed a couple of weeks of school. The next year it happened again. It forced him out of school for five or six months.

"It delayed my entire graduation by a year," said Lowe.

"I was supposed to graduate last year. And it was a hard thing to accept that, you know, my whole life was kind of being derailed and it was a big time of upheaval."

'Intensive process'

But Lowe kept working, with the support of his family, his friends, and his school.

"It was a really intensive process of a lot of specialists, a lot of therapy just to get back to a baseline where I could go to school and learn again," he said.

He was keeping busy outside of school as well, working with an organization that lobbies for fair trade laws, serving as the youth representative on the NDP Executive Council, and working with the DiverseCity Multicultural Festival.

"P.E.I. is a wonderful place to live, but I have encountered some racism in various schools that I've been to and in the community as well," said Lowe, whose father is African American and mother is half Lebanese.

"It leaves you with a feeling of powerlessness. And I think the ability to get involved in DiverseCity has given me the opportunity to take that back and to work to educate the community and to get the word out really on what changes multiculturalism can bring."

The right road

The Loran Scholarship is about more than school work. It has a focus on community involvement and leadership as well. Lowe said, and it was an intense interview.

"It was via Zoom and it was a lot of questions. You know, why do you do this? How do you work?" he said.

It just gave me a new perspective.— Samuel Lowe

"It was a really, really terrifying moment, but I got through it."

While the road has been difficult, Lowe is confident now it has been the right one.

"At this point, I can look back and say, you know, I was really fortunate to be given this time to develop and grow further," he said.

"It just gave me a new perspective and it gave me a direction in relation to where I want to go and where I want to study."

Lowe has not yet made a decision about where he will study next year, but he does have some clear ideas about what he wants to study.

While recovering from his concussions, he gained first-hand knowledge of how little science knows about the brain. While he is not yet sure medical school is in his future, he said his undergraduate work will focus on health sciences, with an eye toward future study of how the brain works, and how life can be improved for victims of concussions.

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