The Current - Pilot, volunteer firefighter, student... scholarship winner!

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

Emily Gustus was shocked to be one of this year's $100,000 Loran Scholarship winners.  Now she can keep up with her school work and keep working as a volunteer firefighter and flying with the air cadets in her hometown of Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

This week on two blocks from the White House, we're talking about a Supreme Court decision that could have a big impact on American elections. The decision narrows, some argue guts the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and it's expected to lead to a major redrawing of electoral maps. Join me, Paul Hunter, and my fellow Washington correspondence, Katie Simpson and Willie Lowry as we break down U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective. Find and follow two blocks from the White House, wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. It is high school grad season. Prom dresses are being bought.

Final exams around the corner. Futures are being planned, including how to pay for post-secondary education. 18-year-old Emily Gustus already has an oppressive resume, firefighter, pilot, student, and more. But she has been feeling that financial pressure as well as she finishes off her final year High School in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, which is a couple of hours east of Saskatoon. With one phone call, though, Emily's money worries evaporated. She is one of 36 Canadian students chosen from thousands of applicants as Loran Scholars. Then being a Loran scholar comes with a big check, a $100,000 scholarship.

Emily Gustavs joins us now from Tisdale, Saskatchewan. Emily, good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you so much. That is a big deal to win this award. award and get that big check, as I mentioned. When the call came through, what went through your mind?

Honestly, I was probably the happiest person in the planet and I still am. So, you know, all of that, like, all of that I was thinking was going to carry for the rest of my life that suddenly just kind of lifted from my shoulders and then like everything flipped around and changed so much and just one like two minute phone call, right? This is a recognition of academic success. But it also really acknowledges character and community service and leadership. And you have this in spades. And I want to walk through some of the things you do, including being a volunteer firefighter. How did you become a volunteer firefighter? So this was during, I guess this was about two years ago now. And in October, we have fire safety week. And so I was just at work, actually. And one of our

fire captains came from the fire hall to pick up some stuff at the hardware store. And he was just telling us about the amazing crew he has. And then I was asking, I needed volunteer hours. So I was asking if they take like high school students. And they had their open house that night. So yeah, come check it out. And then shows me around the trucks. And then he shows me how to put the gear on. And then before you know it, he's got a paper in my hands. And I'm signing off to join the fire department. And it just kind of happened like that. And what do you love about being a volunteer firefighter? I love going out to my community. Honestly, talking with the kids is probably my favorite part.

I like high-fiving the little ones, then showing them how the stuff is all done. I like the training and the discipline and the hard work. It's all part of the job. I love it. Have you had to answer the call when the alarm goes off? Oh, yes. Yes. We do that here.

And what does that be like? It's wild. We do lots of training. So when we answer the call, it's not like it's unexpected usually. I'm a junior member, so we have like our own program. So you start off doing a lot of like kind of like auxiliary tasks and then they move you towards going into like the hot zones. So it's like it's been a really great way to kind of like build up confidence in emergency and like think about how to think properly when things are happening really fast. And like you do so many cool things.

You do not lack confidence, I wouldn't think, because in addition to all of the things that you do, you're also a pilot. Oh, family, are you there? We had her. Emily, are you there? We'll get her back on the line. Emily Gustus is one of the winners of this $100,000 Loran scholarship who, in addition to, as I said, being a volunteer firefighter is also a pilot,

somebody who is involved in cross-country and band. And one of the things that's neat about this story is that she is rooted in her community. This is one of the neat times of the year. I remember a few years ago during the COVID lockdowns, we did these high school graduation events. And the neat thing about those events, and you kind of hear it in Emily's voice there, is that these are students who are on the cusp of something. They are on the verge of something. And they are waiting to go and find the rest of their lives in front of them. And it would be really interesting. One of the things that we heard in doing those shows is that there are students across the country who are kind of in that moment right now. And so if you have somebody like that in your life that is in that moment, high school, graduating, stepping out into that next world, we'd love to hear from them about what they're they are going to do next, and they could get in touch with us as well.

Email us, the current at cbc.ca. In the meantime, Emily Gustus is back on the line with us. Emily, are you there? Yeah, I am. Hi. Great. Tell me about being a pilot and how you ended up learning how to fly planes. So I had been, I was actually a first year in the cadet program,

and one of the big things about cadets is getting to fly. I never been near a plane. I didn't know anything about them, but I did really want to go away from home for a summer. and that seven weeks looked really fun. So I spent a lot of time kind of just like studying for it and then kind of like talking to people who are also pilots and see how much I actually liked the program, how much I would actually like flying.

And it turned out to be something that I thought was pretty darn cool. And so it's a competitive program in the cadets. So I went through their selection process and then they let me go to Trenton for seven weeks, and that's how it kind of all started. How do you fit everything in, volunteer firefighter flying, you're on student council, you do cross-country running, you play in the band.

How do you fit everything into your life? You know, I think a little bit of luck. I'm very lucky that for some reason my band practice and my cadets and everything in my fire practice, they don't all end up on the same days. I think that's a little bit of luck. A big part of it, though, is I organize, I'm a very visual organizer.

Everything is very color-coded and timestamped in my calendar, so that keeps me on track all the time. What are your plans? we were just talking about this being a moment of potential. What are your plans for post-graduation? Where are you going to go next? I just committed to McMaster for engineering, and I'm hoping to do their nuclear engineering physics dream.

Oh, my goodness. And so when I talk to you 10 or 15 years down the road, where will you be? What will you be doing, do you think? You know, I'm really hoping to actually be back in Saskatchewan in 15 years. We're supposed to be getting small modular reactors, and I think that would be awesome to come back and be an engineer with. And that's kind of my dream.

right now. Does it feel like the kind of world is in front of you in this moment, having won this scholarship, but also given all the things that you do? It really does. I really feel I could pick anything and then just absolutely go for it and I have the support I would need to get there. And yeah, I'm really excited. Your parents must be incredibly proud of you. Oh, yes. Yeah. When you graduate, you'll have a little bit of time between the graduation and starting school in Hamilton at Mac. What are you going to do for the summer? summer. Oh, gosh. So I've never actually, I've never been international before. So I'm going to go to Japan for a couple weeks. That's kind of our big grad prize here. I'm hoping to do some

flying with the cadet program again this summer. And then Loran has a retreat they do. And so I'll actually go portaging with all of the other scholars this summer. And I'm super excited for that. It's going to be like a weekend like Northern Ontario. And it looks amazing. What an amazing story that you have and it feels like you are full of potential and there are great things to come. In the meantime, this is a really neat honor and I'm really glad to talk to you about it. Emily, thank you very much and congratulations. Thank you so much. Emily Gustus is one of the winners of the Loran Scholarship comes with $100,000 that you can

put toward your education. As you heard, she's got a big future ahead of her. We reached her this morning in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC. Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca. slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.