MORGANFIELD, Ky. (WFIE) – From Henderson County to Union County, and from the gridiron to the classroom, 17-year-old Union County High School Senior Keelyn Gobin has managed to work his way into his fair share of success.
“I actually grew up in Henderson until I was a freshman, and then we ended up having to move,” explains Gobin. “We ended up moving to Crittenden County for six months, and that just didn’t work out so we just moved here, and we just loved it here. We’ve been here ever since. So many opportunities.”
A starter on the first Braves football team to reach the Kentucky State Championship in school history back in December, he received news that rivaled his excitement for the championship game before they ever made the bus ride to Lexington.
Gobin learned on December 2, just days before the big game, that come next fall he’ll make the trip from UC to UC, Union County to the University of Chicago, where he earned a full scholarship though the QuestBridge National College Match program.
“After you get through the paperwork, you wait a few weeks and then you get an email regarding whether or not you’re a finalist,” says Gobin. “So I ended up getting the email, and then you get another email about matching your schools, which schools you want to apply to on the scholarship. I ended up applying to around 12, which was a lot of work, but ended up being worth it just to have my options out.”
Out of over 25,000 applicants and over 7,000 finalists, Gobin was one of 2,627 students to receive the coveted award.
It’s an award he gives a lot of credit for to his teachers, mentors, and coaches through the years for pushing him foward.
“I kind of brushed it off because of how competitive QuestBridge was, but they kept persistent. I just did it, and then everything happened like, fast, it was crazy,” says Gobin.
Straying away from the small town communities he’s grown to know and love, Gobin will study either pre-med or business while at the University of Chicago.
Now finally making it to the “big city” like he says he always dreamed, although he hasn’t actually gotten to even see the campus in-person yet, Gobin hopes to maybe inspire others to take the leap toward their dreams.
Poised to be the valedictorian of his class, sporting a weighted GPA well over 4.0, and now set to take on college, Gobin has become the kind of person he once looked up to.
“It is really crazy because it felt like yesterday where I was the freshman looking up to all the older kids,” says Gobin. “Possibly being that person now and people maybe looking up to me is like, a really crazy feeling. It’s a great feeling, for sure.”
Copyright 2025 WFIE. All rights reserved.

source