KHS club's spotlight of the week: Becki Hogsten

KHS club’s spotlight of the week: Becki Hogsten

By SHELBY HUNGER Staff Writer

For the month of October the Kinesiology and Health Science club will be sponsoring Exercise is Medicine Month. Each week in October either one student, faculty,or staff member will be spotlighted for how exercise has a positive impact on their life. To kick off Exercise is Medicine month the woman we are featuring this week is an inspiration to us all, and she proves that it’s never too late to exercise.

Becki Hogsten is a Physician Assistant at the Student Health Center on campus. She has been a PA for 23 years and has been at Georgetown College for 16 years.

Becki likes to walk and run for her daily exercise routine. She started off doing a half mile which seemed very difficult when she first started, but slowly started increasing her distance and speed.

Becki started working out after the loss of her brother Danny. Danny fought long and hard, but lost his battle with lung cancer at the young age of 58 last May. Becki has three other siblings who share five different types of cancer between them and she said, “There isn’t anything you can do about your genetics, but you can change what you eat, how you move and your sleep and stress habits.” Becki promised her brother before he passed that she would get healthier and take better care of herself.

With her biggest motivation being her brother Danny, she set off on a year of walking/running with the determination to run a race each month. She joked, “Now what you need to know is that I have never walked/ran anywhere, except maybe to the refrigerator!” She didn’t let that discourage her. Over the course of the past year, she has ran five 5k’s, a 10k, a 7 mile race and a half marathon at Disney World. She said, “And I lived!” Everyone who knows her thought she was crazy and thought that she never would or could. She proved to both them and herself that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and that nothing is impossible when you combine grit + guts = glory!” She did it not only for her brother, but for herself and she documented it all on social media #forDanny.

After the races she was sore, strained, had back pain and even lost a toenail, but she persevered! Although, it was very hard for her and she wanted to quit a thousand times, she gained so much more from it. She lost 18 pounds and felt better both physically and mentally, but most importantly, she was proud of herself.

Her greatest achievement was when she crossed the finish line at the 13.1 mile half marathon race at Disney. Nothing meant more to her and made everything worthwhile than to see her husband and children cheering her on as she crossed the finish line and knowing that her brother Danny was looking down on her from heaven with a big