A Rockford 2020 American Birding Association Young Birder of the Year recipient is now being recognized for some of her other interests.
“I like the little warblers, the fun, they're usually bright colored and just small and cute. And I like them,” said 17-year-old Gracie McMahon. “And the Baltimore Orioles that come around to our area, the bright orange and black. They're so beautiful when they're like the males are so vivid.”
McMahon is the winner of this year's Womanspace Rockford Fine Arts Scholarship. This annual award is given to a high school senior living in either Winnebago, Boone or Ogle counties, who is looking to pursue a higher education in fine arts.
McMahon love for chirping creatures started when she was a child. She visited Sand Bluff Bird Observatory in Rockton with her mom about 10 years ago. She’s been hooked ever since.
“I started volunteering,” she explained, “because the birds were so fun to me and you know, catching birds, like, every time you go out on a net run, to get the birds out of the nets when they're catching them, it's like you don't know what birds are going to be in there.”
McMahon said winning the ABA Young Birder of the Year was instrumental for her. She said the recognition was a bonus but through that process she gained a lot of like-minded friends who she still communicates with.
Birds aren’t the only thing that McMahon pours her heart into. She’s an oboe player who performs with the Rockford Wind Ensemble, Rockford Symphony Orchestra and its youth orchestra. She was a part of the Rockford Christian high school band. She started playing the instrument in sixth grade and grew to love it more in high school. During her sophomore year, she joined RSO’s Youth Orchestra and the Northern Illinois University Sinfonia.
“I loved my instrument before that but joining orchestra was just like, so much more fun honestly than band,” she said. “Oboe band parts are kind of boring sometimes, like mainly high school band oboe parts. It's a lot of the same as what the flutes are playing.”
And the fun didn’t stop with the instrument. She carried over another pastime from middle school.
“We had a tennis club at school, but we didn't have a tennis team because it's middle school, but we also didn't have that much interest. So, we just played for fun.”
She was a part of that club but when she started high school, she noticed something.
“There was a boys tennis team," she said, "and there was no girl’s tennis team.”
McMahon reached out to the school’s athletic director, and he tossed the ball into her court. She took the lead, pulled a couple of friends together and they created a girls’ team at the school.
Liz Hiemstra is the marketing and development director at Womanspace. She said one of the reasons McMahon was chosen for the thousand-dollar scholarship was because of the extracurricular things she is doing.
“She also is a member of American Mensa,” Hiemstra added. “She is a four-year varsity member of the Rockford Christian girl’s tennis team, which she did help form and she is a state finalist three years in a row with the Illinois Science Olympiad.”
McMahon was required to write an essay as a requirement for the scholarship. Hiemstra said McMahon’s writing intertwined the teenager’s passion for birding and music.
McMahon will be 18 soon and is heading to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Oboe performance will be her focus. She received scholarships but there was another factor that made the university her final choice.
“Mainly the oboe professor at U of I, I had known before I applied, and he was my teacher's teacher at U of I,” she said. “And I like it's important that you get along well with your instrumental professor. And we just really get along very well.”
These days McMahon is getting ready for college and preparing for some auditions. In the meantime, she is playing with the Rockford Concert Band. She’s inviting everyone to join her at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays at the Sinnissippi Band Shell. The band's 2024 summer concerts conclude on July 9.
