How Kent Sideris ’24 has used his childhood illness as a catalyst for a lifetime of positivity and service 

By: Jennifer Cooke, Content Strategy & Communications Manager

 

At a glance, Kent Sideris seems like any other high school senior. He’s a student-athlete, a health and wellness advocate, and a self-proclaimed band nerd. With years of saxophone and piano under his belt, stints on both the CHCA swim and lacrosse teams, and successful out-of-school gigs at Planet Fitness and Kings Island, he’s jumped at nearly every opportunity passed his way. (“I just like dipping my hand into as many things as I can,” he jokes.) 

But a longer conversation with Kent reveals his journey to graduation has been anything but a smooth ride.  

At age 8, Kent was diagnosed with epilepsy. 

“I went through about four really tough years,” he shares. 

“The first year was brutal,” adds Steve Sideris, Kent’s father and Principal at CHCA’s Upper Elementary school. “He was having up to 100 absence seizures a day. He had grand mal seizures—including one at school—where we had to take him to the hospital. It was just a horrific time in our lives.” 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 470,000 children in the U.S. have epilepsy, a chronic neurological disorder that affects the electrical activity in the brain. Johns Hopkins Medicine notes that absence seizures are most common in children, characterized by a period of stillness or sudden cessation of activity, and typically do not cause long-term damage. However, they are often experienced in tandem with the more intense grand mal seizures, which involve a loss of consciousness and uncontrollable, rapid muscle jerking. 

For Kent and the Sideris family, epilepsy meant years of darkness marked by a strictly regimented medicine schedule and countless doctor appointments. But a few bright lights kept Kent’s spirits high through it all.  

“I don’t remember the neurologists who helped me,” he says, “but I do remember the nurses along the way. They were there from day one and were always by my side. That kind of planted the seed for me wanting to go into nursing.”  

Patient Turned Provider

“I didn’t really visit that idea until thinking about college,” Kent admits. “Then Covid hit, and you could really see the nursing shortage and stress nurses were going through. I felt like it was my life’s calling and God’s calling to go into nursing to help as many people as possible.” 

When the time came to explore options for his next alma mater, he cast a wide net, looking close to home and in neighboring states to find the right fit. One step onto the University of Louisville (UofL) campus, and Kent knew he had found something special.  

“I love the environment, the city, the campus. When I saw all the activities, I just thought this might be the place,” he says, quipping, “and going to a football game might have helped with that.” 

School selected, he began looking for financial aid. UofL’s prestigious Grawemeyer Scholarship popped up. 

Awarded to just 10 students annually, the Grawemeyer Scholarship recognizes undergraduates who express a studied interest in pursuing faculty-supervised research relating to a topic in their major. Students who apply must submit two essays, one that describes a research project of interest and one that recognizes a previous Grawemeyer Award-winning idea the applicant finds particularly inspiring.  

Seeing yet another opportunity in the making, Kent dove headfirst into the application. Pulling from Grawemeyer Award recipient Aaron Beck’s work on cognitive behavioral therapy, Kent identified a connection between healing and positivity.  

“Aaron Beck published an idea on cognitive behavioral therapy as a way to manage stress, to make your life better overall, and to treat certain conditions. If we have all of these ideas about this type of cognitive behavioral therapy, what if we implement that into nursing so patients have a quicker recovery time by having a more positive, stress-free environment?” 

Kent’s question comes as a natural byproduct of his own medical history and recent work experience. (“I realized I’ve been using some of these ideas subconsciously, not knowing it was a thing,” he says.) As a food service team lead at Kings Island, he’s seen how cultivating a positive working environment can change the course of an entire day in a fast-paced, high-stress sector. And when recovering from epilepsy, though he might not have been aware of how his surroundings affected his health, he and Steve believe positivity played a part.  

Submitting an application to the Grawemeyer Scholarship seemed like a longshot, even considering the depth of research and passion embedded in Kent’s proposal. Despite his competition—students boasting law firm internships and 5.0 GPAs—his submission proved innovative and worthy of further consideration, and his resume demonstrated leadership and heart. In the spring of 2024, he got the news: He was the newest Grawemeyer Scholarship recipient. 

Divine Intervention 

None of Kent’s accomplishments are by accident, he insists. God has charted his course from the very beginning.  

“Even though it’s not obvious, God was with us in that moment when I was 8,” he says. “Looking back on it, He had a plan from the first seizure to where I’m sitting now. It was a blessing in disguise.” 

After years of struggling with seizures, Kent was slowly weaned off of his medicine and successfully pulled through two years seizure-free. Medically, his chances now of having a seizure are the same as if he had never had epilepsy. 

But God wasn’t finished yet. 

Just as Kent began to resume a relatively normal life, a position opened up at CHCA that aligned with Steve’s experience in education. The family moved from a large public elementary school—where Kent was one in a sea of students—to Founders’ Campus, where in a class less than a third the size of his previous school, he made fast friends with nearly everyone he met. As he progressed through grades and buildings, he found intimate class sizes and close relationships with teachers were just what he needed to thrive. 

“You have some of the best connections you’ll ever have. I can ask anybody for help, students or teachers, and receive it. That’s been the best thing about CHCA,” he says. 

Kent and Steve are grateful for every teacher and coach who, “instead of discarding him or being annoyed,” says Steve, built into Kent and created an environment where he could grow intellectually, personally, and spiritually. 

“Coming here opened doors so he could figure himself out while still healing,” says Steve. “He had all these opportunities he wouldn’t have had. All those opportunities over time built into him and who he’s becoming. What’s emotional is we go back to second grade, and we didn’t know if he was going to live a normal life. We come here, and things start working, and all these opportunities lead to this wonderful person sitting here. 

“And I wouldn’t have been here had none of this happened,” he continues. “That’s when I fully committed and said, ‘God, fix him. I’ll do whatever you want.’ A year later, I’m a principal at a Christian school. God put me in this place.”  

“He’s still working His magic to this day,” tags Kent. 

As he packs his bags for Louisville, Kent is leaving behind a legacy of hard work and deep faith. His natural servant’s heart—which he cultivated through fixing cars for those in need, working on community service buildings in Tennessee, and serving people in Kenya—will come in handy as he applies his research to patients for years to come. It’ll also shine through as he lives alongside other scholars in UofL’s Honors dorm and plays alto sax in the Cardinal Marching Band. 

Spending his last summer pre-UofL at Kings Island, he’ll be doing what he does best: leading his team with a spirit of positivity—and maybe getting a side-eye or two from upper management for letting workers take leftover food at the end of the day.  

“‘I’m not going to let you go home hungry when you got here at six and have to take public transportation back,’ he tells his team. “‘Just take this home with you. You made it, you deserve it.’”