SHAPE star

Passion. 

Leadership.

Servitude.

These are all traits Jay County High School Class of 2021 graduate Sophia Fugiett has demonstrated time and time again.

Now she’s being recognized for her dedication nationally.

The Society of Health and Physical Educators America recently named Fugiett as one of the Major of the Year award winners.

“I can’t even comprehend what that is or what that means,” said Fugiett, noting she’d heard the news about a week prior to an interview Jan. 17. “That’s just crazy for me to wrap my head around. It’s such an honor.”

In November, Fugiett was recognized as the Indiana SHAPE Outstanding Student of 2023 at the organization’s conference in Indianapolis. The award, given to one Indiana student annually, recognizes undergraduate students who have “displayed distinctive leadership and meritorious service to his/her profession of health, physical education, recreation, dance, and/or allied areas,” according to Indiana SHAPE’s website.

Likewise, SHAPE America’s Major of the Year award “celebrates outstanding undergraduate students in the fields of health, physical education, recreation and dance.” It’s given to a select number of students across the nation each year.

Fugiett’s professor, Andrea McMurtry, submitted an application to the national organization advocating for her.

“She is an amazing student, an amazing future teacher, she truly cares about children, she cares about her peers at Ball State and I think she would do absolutely anything for anyone that would need it,” said McMurtry, Ball State University’s undergraduate coordinator for physical education and health teacher education program who also won a leadership award at the state conference.

Fugiett, the 2022 Miss Jay County Fair Queen, has also been involved in extracurricular programs throughout her college career. She has served as president of Ball State University SHAPE and has been involved with the INSHAPE Young Professionals Board, which aims to reach out to students majoring in physical education and health education.

“She’s just always trying to do the right thing, and she does it with a smile and a positive attitude,” McMurtry said.

Fugiett also received accolades in the past, including being named as the 2022 INSHAPE Major of the Year. 

McMurtry noted Fugiett has been making an impact since she started taking classes at Ball State.

“Most of the students sit back and are very quiet their first year taking it all in,” McMurtry said. “She was a natural leader already, making friends and just standing out in the major in a great way.”

She spoke highly of Fugiett’s abilities as a teacher, saying she’s going to “make a difference wherever she goes.”

“She wants to be a physical education teacher and a coach, and she has such a passion for what quality physical education actually is,” said McMurtry. “A lot of people kind of have a stereotypical belief of what PE is and PE teachers do, you know, but there’s so much more to it. She wants to teach so that she can help students understand and find a passion for fitness. Her role as an athlete, she wants to bring that and the rewards that coaching can bring young people.”

Fugiett is in the midst of student teaching and wrapping up her final year at Ball State. (She finished a year of college classes while attending Jay County High School.) Majoring in health and physical education in May, she’ll be certified to teach kindergarten through 12th grade physical education courses and fifth through 12th grade health classes

She expressed an interest to return to Jay School Corporation as an educator.

“I graduated from here, that’s kind of where I got my passion from teaching, so coming back and being able to be a teacher here would be a full-circle moment,” she said, noting her location will depend on job availability but that her goal is to find a position close to home.

Sophia Fugiett comes from a family of educators, including her mother, Cathy Fugiett, who works as the media specialist for Jay County Junior-Senior High School. She recalls pictures from her childhood of her “teaching” her baby dolls and stuffed animals.  

“Teaching has just been in my blood, I always knew I was going to be a teacher,” said Fugiett.

Her time as a cross country and track and field athlete in high school, as well as her passion for fitness, helped solidify which kind of teacher she wanted to be.

“I’ve never looked back since,” she said. “I’m very, very passionate about it, and I definitely love it, to be able to motivate students to want to move their bodies and be healthy.”

She’s looking forward to the March national conference in Cleveland, where she’ll be recognized for the achievement. What she’s most excited about, though, is collaborating with other educators from across the nation.

“I’ll be surrounded by PE teachers and health teachers from all across America, and that will be so inspiring to be able to network with some other people from California, or Florida, to see how, like, what they’re doing in their classrooms, in their gyms, to see if I can take any of their ideas for my classroom that I’ll have one day,” she said.

Fugiett expressed her gratitude for being a recipient of the national award.

“Honestly, when I think about it, I’m kind of just speechless, because it’s out of all the health and PE college students in the nation, and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around that I was chosen to kind of represent Indiana,” she said. “So I’m just really, really honored, and I’m excited to be able to meet some of the other Majors of the Year and then hopefully build those lifelong connections to bounce ideas back off of each other throughout the whole teaching career that I have.”