Past graduates from Parsons High School have simultaneously graduated with an associate’s degree from Labette Community College, but this year’s PHS Salutatorian, Lucas Fugate, achieved a rare, possibly unmatched, accomplishment.
After graduating from PHS May 11, Lucas graduated summa cum laude from LCC on May 16, and walked the stage to receive four associate’s degrees: An associate of science (AS) in engineering technology; an AS in chemistry; an AS in mathematics; and an AS in engineering physics.
“I feel grateful to have gotten to be in the position where I could work towards my goals,” he said. “I feel a lot of it comes down to your support system, timing and luck. I'm just extremely thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve been given.”
Asked his plans for this summer before entering Wichita State University in the fall, Lucas said his plans are to relax. That may require an adjustment period, as this is his first summer to take time to unwind, decompress and enjoy leisure time since before the start of his freshman year of high school. Every summer since then has been dedicated to taking college classes.
Most freshmen are not allowed to enroll in college, but being in the gifted program, Lucas’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) plan outlined his ability to do so.
He had always thought about starting college in high school, and his freshman year he began looking into requirements for an engineering physics degree. He set his sights on that and began.
“I really like designing things and problem solving, which just goes hand-in-hand with all that stuff,” he said.
His interest in those areas was heightened through his involvement in the middle school technology classes, then taught by Trevor Maiseroulle, and joining the Technology Student Association (TSA), that fosters problem-solving, innovation and leadership skills. His interest in design was further enhanced as he entered drafting and design classes at PHS taught by Bruce Rea. 
Spring semester his freshman year of high school Lucas took his first college class online.
“It was kind of getting used to the idea of how LCC’s online software worked. That summer I took more classes and then I kept stacking more and more as I could,” he said. “ I just went from there.”
Some of the basic college classes Lucas was able to take via concurrent/dual credit courses taught at the college or high school, that allow a student to earn credit at both institutions for each class. For example, taking English Comp I and II would also count towards high school English credit requirements given they are post-secondary level courses.
“Our big thing is we didn’t want to overwhelm him, so we kind of let him go at his own pace, and encouraged him to take what he wanted,” his mom, Megan Fugate said. “We advised him not to take too much, to start slow, and he could always increase later.
“I think the most (credit hours) he took in a semester was 19 hours.”
“I feel like most of the time I felt like I was taking too much,” Lucas admitted. “But I really enjoyed a lot of my classes. My heaviest load was my junior year, but it is when I was taking calc and chemistry from the college and those were two of my favorite classes I had. They were two of the hardest, but I enjoyed them, so they really weren’t that bad. Taking calc III over the summer was kind of miserable, but luckily I’ve got a pretty good support system with my parents, so it was a lot more manageable just having people that were there for me.”
With a mom working for LCC allowing him the opportunity to take classes with tuition and fees waived, Lucas was always told if he was interested in any class to take it. The only requirement was that he got a good grade.
“I just kind of took all the things I was interested in - math and chemistry and physics and all of that, so I just ended up having enough. It wasn’t like a planned thing for some of those degrees. It just kind of happened,” he said.
“A lot of them just went together,” Mrs. Fugate said of the degree requirements. “So he just had to pick up a few classes here and there to complete the other degrees.”
Some of those degrees are not currently available through LCC. Mrs. Fugate explained that Lucas began the degrees during catalogue years when they were still offered at LCC. When the instructors teaching courses for some of those degrees retired, they were not replaced with similarly qualified individuals. Those degrees were no longer offered to new students, but those already enrolled were allowed to finish them out. To do so, Lucas had to take some of the remaining classes at Barton and transfer them to LCC.
“He did Calc III online last summer and took some engineering and physics he needed to finish out those degrees,” his mom said.
Graduating high school as salutatorian and from LCC with highest honors, Lucas got into Wichita State University’s Honors College and will be studying aerospace engineering.
He is already enrolled in his “awesome” classes for fall, like differential equations and statics, and has his schedule. He is starting out with 12 credit hours as he will be working part-time, too.
“I’m going to be starting at the NIAR, the National Institute for Aviation Research lab, to try to get some more experience in aerospace,” he said. “The first three months they train you on the software and then after I’ll get assigned to help on projects. The little bit I talked to them, the recruiter said they look at old designs for planes from a long time ago and then redesign them with modern tech to see how they can be improved through research and development.”
He is hoping he can get his bachelor’s in two years from WSU and continue on there with his graduate studies. His sights are set on a doctorate degree in aerospace engineering, so he likely has at least six more years of college ahead.
His end goal presently is to get a good job in the field for a while to garner some experience, and then he would like to have the opportunity to return to WSU and teach and do research there.
“Wichita is the air capital of the world and they have all those businesses on campus now. They are building new buildings. They have one that just opened up and then they are working on a new UAV building where they will do drone development and all that stuff. They are expanding, so I feel it would be a really cool place to teach, especially if I attended there,” he said. “The research is definitely very appealing and whenever I talk about things I’m really passionate about, I really enjoy that, so I feel like I would be able to teach those classes a lot more.”
Mrs. Fugate said they are very proud of Lucas.
“Lucas has always been focused and set goals for himself, even when he was in middle school,” she said. “We are proud of all he has accomplished at only 17 and are so excited to see what the future holds.”
To other high school students, Lucas encourages them to definitely take advantage of their opportunities because it will make pursuing college and career goals a lot easier.
“Set your goal and then work really hard towards it and eventually things will start to fall into place,” he said.
For high school students interested in working towards their college degree early, LCC offers the Jumpstart program. Talk to PHS counselor Tabitha Routh, academic advisor Kylie Lucas, or visit LCC and ask questions. If they don’t know the answer they will find out.