From here to anywhere, the Class of 2026 finds its place
April 24, 2026
Meet seven members of Radford University’s Class of 2026 and the stories they’re carrying into what comes next.
At Radford University, finding your place is only the beginning. Members of the Class of 2026 prepare to step into what comes next, carrying with them the experiences that shaped their time on campus. This project features seven graduating students from each of Radford's seven colleges whose stories reflect the many ways a place can shape a journey. Each is pictured with a red suitcase, symbolizing the relationships, lessons and memories they take into their next chapter. The item inside, revealed in the accompanying video, represents a defining part of their experience. Together, these snapshots show how the Radford experience travels far beyond campus.
Hunter Smith, College of Education and Human Development
During his four years at Radford University, Hunter Smith has lived a little bit like a superhero.
He’s a jovial, mild-mannered, bespectacled Elementary Education student, as well as a resident advisor and Quest assistant.
But ever since his freshman year, Smith would periodically vanish, and those absences generally coincided with appearances by Radford’s mascot, the Highlander, as he stood side by side with President Bret Danilowicz, or roused the crowds during basketball games or represented the school at admissions or alumni events.
Now, as graduation nears, the truth can be told: Smith was indeed slipping away to suit up as the big man himself, to don the signature sash, kilt, boots, gauntlets and headpiece.
“It's definitely been a cool experience,” Smith reflected recently. “There are different things that I can do as a mascot that the day-to-day person can’t do. As myself, I can’t walk up and just randomly tap someone on the shoulder like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ But you can do that in the mask.
“But mostly the way I act, as the Highlander, it’s just me. I’m very interactive with people. And that’s been my biggest thing – I was all about the fans and not necessarily about the game. Just making sure that fan interaction was there,” he said.
Forming personal connections and getting involved have always been important to Smith, who most recently lived in Summerville, South Carolina. But he moved around a lot when he was growing up, and as a result, attended multiple institutions from the elementary level through high school.
“Coming to Radford was the first time in my academic career I stayed in one place,”
he said. “Getting involved with the campus was awesome. From Day One, I got to meet
a lot of cool people and have kept those connections. There are a lot of different
people on campus that know me and the different work that I've done, so that's definitely
made a very life-changing impact.
“In my world, home is not a place. It’s people.”
As Smith prepares to leave Radford and his outsized alter ego behind, he’s still going
to be carrying that hero mantle, albeit in a more public way.
In August, he’ll become a full-time educator, teaching fourth grade within the Fauquier County Public Schools system, where he’ll instruct his homeroom class in writing and math. He’ll also teach science school-wide.
“I love math; math is my subject, but science has to be the most fun. You can do a lot with science,” Smith said.
“I have a big connection with kids, and I love the light bulb moment, when their imaginations get it. When they learn something, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I know it!’ That’s always been a big thing for me with pupils. Watching that ‘a-ha!’ moment.”
Veronica Vann, College of Nursing
When Chesterfield County, Virginia, native Veronica Vann applied to Radford University, she was still deciding which program she would pursue as a Highlander. Healthcare was something she knew she wanted to be a part of, but she was still figuring out exactly where she would land in the field.
“I did an EMT program through my county in high school as ‘medicine sampler platter,’” Vann said. “I wanted to know if I liked medicine before I invested four years of education in medical training.”
That experience assured her that a healthcare career was definitely in the cards, but it didn’t help her choose her exact path. So, she applied to both the nursing and emergency services programs at Radford University – and she was accepted into both.
“I debated which program to choose,” she recalls, “but I chose nursing because I liked the variety of opportunities it offers.”
Vann said that once she began the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program at Radford University Carilion (RUC) in Roanoke, she was concerned about making friends because she was from outside the area, and many of her classmates had known each other since high school. She quickly found, though, that RUC felt like a second home to her.
“I’ve made amazing friends that I will hopefully be friends with the rest of my life,” she said.
Reflecting on her time at Radford, Vann says that there are small things she’ll always remember fondly, like finding her place through connections with her classmates, warm hellos in the hallway from everyone and talking with compassionate faculty about both academic and non-academic topics.
She said there are also big things that will be wonderful memories of her time at Radford, like a once-in-a-lifetime two-week trip to the Netherlands as part of her program, which included an ambulance ride-along and a project on prehospital care offered in that country.
After graduation, Vann will be working in the emergency department at LewisGale Hospital in Salem, Virginia, as a new grad nurse resident. She has already been working there for about a year and a half as a nurse extern.
“My time at Radford has made me realize that I love healthcare,” Vann said. “I love being there for and helping people. Radford has given me so many opportunities to learn and grow as a nurse. I don’t think I would be here if it weren’t for Radford.”
Duy Pham, Waldron College of Health and Human Services
Duy Pham came to the United States with his family in 2014 from Vietnam. They settled in Roanoke, and Pham began classes at William Fleming High School, followed by a stint at Virginia Western Community College, where he earned a health sciences degree.
His next steps weren’t quite as clear, though, until he sat down with his advisor to talk about what he ultimately wanted to do with his life.
“My advisor talked to me about the Respiratory Therapy program at Radford University,” Pham said. “I wasn’t sure what respiratory therapy was at the time, but Radford having a site in Roanoke was perfect for me.”
As Pham learned more about how important respiratory therapists are to the healthcare team and people’s health in general, he got more and more invested in the profession. He was soon spending time and connecting with classmates in his home-away-from-home, the Respiratory Therapy Lab at Radford University Carilion (RUC) in the heart of downtown Roanoke.
Pham’s efforts to connect with other Highlanders extended beyond the lab and classroom, too. As his classes progressed, he joined with other Radford University students in his program, as well as some in nursing, emergency services, occupational therapy, physical therapy and physician assistant studies, to form a community soccer club that plays in Roanoke’s adult soccer league.
“That’s where you would find me when I’m not at school,” Pham said. “When I’m not in class, I’m out there connecting with people playing soccer.”
Pham feels that being part of a team – especially with burgeoning healthcare professionals studying in different programs – helps prepare them all to work together more effectively in the clinical setting as they care for real patients.
“It’s a great way to build relationships and practice teamwork together with other healthcare professionals,” he said.
After graduation, Pham will work as a respiratory therapist at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he has already completed clinical rotations. Gaining that experience at one of the region's largest hospitals has been invaluable for Pham.
“Respiratory therapy is an amazing field and a very important part of healthcare,” he said. “Being in this field, I did a lot of clinical time in the ICU [Intensive Care Unit] in hospitals. A lot of medical issues are linked to smoking, and many of my family members are smokers. So, with the knowledge that I’ve gained from the program, I’ll be able to educate not only my patients, but my family as well. I hope I can help everyone have healthier lives.”
Glenn Bost, College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences
Glenn Bost didn’t just find his place at Radford University; he discovered the one thing he wants to do for years to come.
He grew up in Bangor, Maine, and Salem, Virginia, developing a love for history and archival material. “It's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” the senior explained weeks before completing a Bachelor of Science in history, “but I have never had the opportunity to actually gain experience doing anything in an archival setting or a library setting.”
Then, he found Radford.
When Bost first toured Radford as a high school senior, looking to make a decision about where to attend college, he discovered the university’s Center for Archives and Digital History. Located inside Hemphill Hall, the center provides Radford students opportunities to work directly with faculty experts on original archival material while exploring new digital spaces of creativity and research. “I knew then Radford was the place I wanted to go,” he said.
Working with Professor of History Sharon Roger Hepburn, Bost gained valuable hands-on experience connecting with the Radford community, volunteering to “help people preserve family histories, which “now more than ever,” he said, “is extremely important.”
For three years, Bost worked to digitize letters from a unique family collection that dates back to the late 1800s.
The collection consists of a series of courtship letters, Bost explained, mostly from a woman named Carrie to a man, John, whom she would eventually marry.
“Carrie's letters offer rare insight into the perspective of a lower-class woman working to support herself without a husband's aid, living through a series of severe influenza outbreaks and struggling with her faith as she navigates grief and financial hardship,” explained Bost, standing inside the Center for Archives and Digital History.
Through his work in the center, Bost helped Carrie’s descendants “connect with her experiences, which, despite taking place more than 150 years ago,” he noted, “reflect the hardships that many of us endure today.”
Working on the project and others like it helped Bost secure a feeling of belonging at Radford and a path forward to his future. “This is my passion,” he said. “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Phillp Lockey, College of Visual and Performing Arts
When it came time for music education major and percussionist Phillip Lockey to present his senior recital in March, he phrased its title in the form of a question.
He called the performance “How Did I Get Here?” and while many students on the cusp of graduation might find themselves wondering the same thing, for Lockey that interrogative has a particular resonance.
A Harrisonburg, Virginia, native, he first took marching band as a teen on the advice of his father, but it wasn’t a perfect fit right off the bat.
“I did hate music in high school. I just did not enjoy it at all,” he recently recalled. “And then I found myself not wanting to quit, because it was just something I did and my friends were there.”
When he came to Radford, Lockey initially majored in special education, but it wasn’t long before he switched over to his old frenemy.
“When I told my band director from home that I was majoring in music, he laughed,” Lockey said. “And kids from my high school told me I was the last person they would have expected to become a music major. They thought ‘He just got out of it and he went back in.’”
“So it was like, ‘How did I end up doing this?’”
But that’s often the way it goes when someone has found their calling.
Since committing to music, Lockey has performed with the Radford University Drumline at basketball games and now leads it, has been in the Highlander Pipes and Drums Corps, performs with University Symphony and the Percussion Ensemble and was this year’s College of Visual and Performing Arts ambassador for music. He also learned how to read music at Radford and has discovered that his love of teaching it rivals his love of playing it.
After commencement, Lockey will take a gap year to prepare for his graduate school auditions, and he also plans to work as a music instructor at Radford High School.
Regarding his complicated musical evolution, Lockey recalled a conversation he had with a group of other musicians.
“I was talking about how I thought I’ve never felt accomplished with a solo,” he explained. “And I felt like what I had been doing was making a sandwich. I would get halfway through, and I would start dreaming about the next sandwich I wanted to have – like ‘ooh, that sounds really good!’
“And in terms of music, I was learning all the notes and the rhythms, but I wasn’t making everything intentional. I was not finishing the sandwich. And I’ve started to do that more when I’m playing music, thinking about it as a sandwich,” Lockey said.
“The piece I’m playing right now,” – a six-movement marimba solo, called “Reflections on the Nature of Water”, which he’s perfecting for grad school auditions – “it’s the first time in my life I’ve been able to see it all. I’m not walking to the cabinet to grab anything; I already have all the ingredients for the sandwich. I’m not missing anything; I’ve just got to put it together.”
Athena Smith, Artis College of Science and Technology
Athena Smith developed a strong passion for science early in her childhood.
“I was always tinkering with things,” said the Radford University senior, reflecting on her young scientist days.
Smith planned to follow in her father’s footsteps in mechanical engineering, but when it came to picking a career, she found that physics at Radford University better supported her long-term academic and professional goals.
“At Radford, I found that majoring in physics was a better fit for me,” she said. Bringing that idea into focus was the Alaska geophysics program that every two years places a small group of science-curious students in Utqiagvik, Alaska, to conduct research in the harsh Arctic conditions of the northernmost city in the United States.
Over the course of a week or two, students often endure -40 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures and gusty winds as they work to complete projects they’ve researched and designed for months. Smith first traveled to Utqiavik, 300 miles above the Arctic Circle, with her fellow student researchers and their leader, Professor of Physics Rhett Herman, in 2024. Her task was to measure wind speeds on the Arctic sea ice using load cells and anemometers.
It can be challenging walking out onto the ice – “it crunches like cornstarch,” Smith noted – putting research into action while keeping an eye out for wandering polar bears and fighting the bitter temperatures. But the cold doesn’t bother her anyway, so she took a second tour with the group in February 2026. Smith went to advance her research with a second iteration of her project and to serve as a Radford Elevate Student Research mentor.
“We have become family,” Smith said, sitting in Radford Arctic Geophysics lab, holding her 3D-printed load cell anemometer she used in Utqiagvik. “We have a great support system, and I definitely feel a part of the community here.”
Like many Radford students, Smith began her academic research journey as a freshman.
And it never stopped.
In addition to her geophysics work, she spent the summer of 2025 working on research at Princeton University’s Scholes laboratory as part of a fellowship through the university’s Department of Chemistry Visiting Faculty Research Partnership.
“My whole career at Radford has been research-focused,” said Smith, who has already secured a position with Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) following her graduation in May. “I give all the thanks to Radford. I honestly would not want to be anywhere else.”
Aaron Chappell, Davis College of Business and Economics
Even as he works through those final, stressful weeks before graduation, Aaron Chappell’s resting face is a smile. Indeed, the Hillsville, Virginia, native typically radiates a genuine, amiable and easygoing vibe.
Tick through his activities at Radford, however, and you'll spot all the signs of
someone who's going somewhere in a hurry.
Last year, Chappell, a first-generation college student, earned a B.B.A. in human resources management, then continued straight through for his MBA, which
he will complete this spring.
At the same time, he worked as a manager and bartender at the storied local institution that is BT's Restaurant while also serving as a graduate teaching assistant within Radford's new AI Sandbox. It was through that latter work that he honed new skills in auditing, evaluation and particularly AI hallucination analysis – basically troubleshooting when artificial intelligence presents responses that are inaccurate, illogical or just plain made.
Coming up next: Chappell has parlayed his technological aptitudes into a new career.
"I'm going on a little bit of an adventure," he explained in early April. "I got an area manager role with Amazon, so here in a few weeks, they're shipping me off to Seattle (Washington) to train up a little bit, and then I'll be moving to Wilmington, North Carolina, where I'll be managing the operations of a robotic fulfillment center."
He credits his work as a teaching assistant and Radford’s unique environment with providing him the knowledge he needed to win that position.
"There's been so much time with me sitting down here, getting to talk with people and meet with people and having them reach out," Chappell said. "It just feels like you get a lot more opportunities at Radford to have those important conversations. I think if it were a bigger university with a lot more happening, and I was doing a lot more independent research, I wouldn't be where I am with it at all."