For all the characters that Mallory Over has portrayed throughout her budding stage career – one that began in her living room putting on performances for her parents – there’s one that just seems to be the embodiment of who she is.
 
SpongeBob Squarepants.
 
Anyone that’s heard her dead-on impression of his laugh would attest to that. But it goes well beyond her simple portrayal of SpongeBob in last year’s school play.
 
One could argue that it’s a fitting character because Over possesses the same enthusiasm and seemingly endless energy with which the wildly popular cartoon character goes about his daily life. There’s no doubt that Over has displayed those traits as she’s woven her way into just about every aspect of student life there is at Burlington High School.
 
But really, it’s as simple as this. Over is a sponge, soaking up anything and everything she can in whatever she does to get the most out of her high school experience. And her future.
 
“I just always like to give what I love my all,” Over said. “Although acting is my passion, I have so much love for so many different things. For example, STUCO means a lot to me. It’s one of my favorite things at the school besides acting. I love how it truly impacts the student body at the school. Out of all the clubs, it has the most impact on the kids and their happiness and making a difference and making changes.
 
“And I love exercising so I loved getting to be on all the sports teams I’ve been on. And then all the clubs I’ve been a part of are fun, too. All my extracurriculars, really. I just love being involved and if I’m involved, I’m going to give it my best.”
 
Over, Burlington’s student body president who is also ranked No. 1 in her graduating class, is this week’s CapFed® True Blue® Student of the Week.
 

 
“She’s that kid,” Burlington principal Jodi Grover said. “She dips her foot in a little bit of everything and yet puts her everything into everything she does. She goes full throttle and goes for it.”
 
Over was chomping at the bit to go for as many things as she could when she hit the halls of Burlington High School. Already involved in numerous activities in middle school -- competing in volleyball, basketball and track and on the Scholars Bowl team – the transition to high school couldn’t come soon enough.
 
“Ever since elementary school, I was always volunteering to do different projects and be in different groups,” she said. “Just do whatever I could do. I knew when I got to high school, it was like, heaven. There were just so many more opportunities.”
 
And Over seemingly took advantage of all of them. She’s played both volleyball and cross country in the fall throughout her prep career while also participating in basketball for two years and track and field all four years.
 
If that didn’t keep her busy enough, her club activity was even greater. Over has participated in Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), Student Athlete Leadership Team (SALT), Drama Club, Mind Over Matter, Scholars Bowl, Forensics and Student Council for most if not all of her high school career as well as being a member of Burlington’s National Honor Society the past three years. In each of those clubs, Over has held some sort of leadership position, including president of the drama club as a sophomore and of the student council as both a junior and a senior. 
 
“I don’t know how she has the time or capacity to do it all, but she does,” Burlington athletic director Taylor Wilson said. “She goes to track practice and then has to practice the play because she’s the lead. Or goes to cross country and then prep for the musical. And then fit in forensics practice and go to tournaments on Saturdays. And she has all As to go with it.”
 
Jason Bates, Over’s gifted teacher, called the senior a “self-starter who when she sees something she wants, she goes after it and knows how to get it.”
 
“She’s one involved girl and I’m not sure how she does it taking the case load and class load that she does as well as all the activities she’s involved in and be able to get it done at a high level,” he said. “She has a great work ethic. Being able to be involved in everything she’s involved in and getting it done and excelling in all that work is amazing.”
 
“I’m honestly just a master organizer,” Over said. “I have worked to really find ways to schedule in everything I want to do. I just find time for everything to work.”
 
Sometimes that means exchanging one activity for another. She gave up basketball after her sophomore season to return to Scholars Bowl and this season she helped the Wildcats to a runner-up finish in the Pioneer League and a Class 3A regional championship, ending a long state drought for the program.
 
But for most of the rest of her activities, she simply finds the time to make them all happen.
 
That’s how she wanted her high school career to be. And of all the extracurricular opportunities Over was excited to take advantage of, two clearly were at the top of her list. Forensics and theater.
 
“They don’t offer that in middle school, so I couldn’t wait to be involved with it,” she said.
 
Arguably, the wait for theater began before Over even had hit kindergarten. As a young girl, she would routinely make her parents, Dirk and Christy Over, sit on the couch as she acted out her favorite princess movies, a song and dance she had come up with or put on a fashion show.
 
“You name it I was doing it,” Over said. “(My parents) have always been very, very supportive of me.”
 
Those in-house performances quickly led to Over participating in the local children’s theater where her first performance when she was in the fourth grade just so happened to come in her favorite princess movie, Beauty and the Beast. While she didn’t get to portray Belle as she had so many times for her parents, her part as one of Gaston’s “silly girls” hooked her so deeply that she knew the stage was where she belonged.
 
“I just start performing and I feel like myself,” Over said. “It’s just such a love for me. I love how it can display different emotions and stories and perspectives on life. I love getting to tell a story. It’s very human.”
 
Over performed in five different shows at the children’s theater each year before arriving in high school where she could do performances as part of the school’s theatre department. She’s had everything from minor parts to leading roles, including SpongeBob as a junior and Sally Brown in this spring’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”
 

 
The deeper Over poured herself into acting and singing, she knew it was the career path she wanted to pursue whether as a television or movie actress or a Broadway performer. And as one might expect, she was proactive in taking steps to help her down that path.
 
Instead of participating on stage in the children’s theater over the summer once she reached high school (she still served as a volunteer acting coach), Over began attending theater camps. The summer between her freshman and sophomore year, she attended the First Act KC Musical Theater Camp – one she called the turning point in her budding stage career.
 
“I got to be with a lot of kids that really loved performing,” Over said. “It gave me a sense of home and family.”
 
Coming out of that camp, Over began taking voice lessons on a regular basis. She also started singing lessons, connected to her coach, Ashley Rogers, by former Burlington Wildcat Kameron Cole, who was four years older than Over and one of her role models in Burlington’s theater performances.
 
“She was just phenomenal and an amazing singer,” Over said of Cole.
 
The same summer she attended the First Acts KC camp, Over also applied for the prestigious Kristin Chenoweth Broadway Bootcamp, which is held in Broken Arrow, Okla., and put on by Chenoweth, who has starred in such movies as Four Christmases and Deck the Halls and TV shows such as Pushing Daisies and Glee, but perhaps is best known for playing Glinda in the 2003 Broadway hit Wicked.
 
She wasn’t selected that year, but last summer got the call that she had been accepted for the 10-day camp, which also is staffed by other actors and actresses such as noted Broadway performers Christopher Sieber, who starred in Shrek, the Musical, and Annaleigh Ashford, who starred in Legally Blonde: The Musical.
 
Overcome with emotion when she got that call, Over again called the camp life-changing.
 
“It was so enlightening,” she said. “I had a whole notebook filled with ideas I wrote down. I got a lot of one-one-one time with professionals who I had recognized their names. And the other kids were so talented. It was definitely an experience I learned the most from.
 
“I think I just became a very much more aware performer. I figured out how to tap into different stories better and different emotions more realistically.”
 
That ability has translated well to her forensics performances in high school.
 
As a sophomore in 2023, Over captured Class 3A state titles in both Humorous Solo Acting and Serious Solo Acting. That came on the heels of a runner-up state finish in Improvised Duet Acting as a freshman with Kurt Keegan. Last year as a junior, Over finished as state runner-up in Serious Solo Acting and runner-up in Improvised Duet Acting with teammate Korryn Bolen.
 
Burlington also finished third as a team in Class 3A last year, its highest-ever state showing.
 
“We had some pretty high expectations for what she would be able to accomplish for our team,” said Burlington forensics coach Lillian Lingenfelter, who took over the program during Over’s sophomore season. “She genuinely wants to see her peers succeed and is willing to do whatever she can to help. She encourages younger students to get involved with our program and is excited about our team and brings such a positive dynamic amongst the team. Mallory works really hard at what she does, of course all my students do. My team has been able to grow from that success.”
 

 
In addition to her success in the KSHSAA state events, Over also has thrived in the National Speech and Debate Association competitions as well. A national tournament qualifier in 2023, Over made it two years in a row last year, taking first place in Dramatic Interpretation and Humorous Interpretation at last year’s qualifier where she went up against competitors from much larger schools. She was Burlington’s first-ever national qualifier for NDSA.
 
While the success she’s enjoyed in the forensics arena may seem only natural given her extensive theater background and enhanced training, Lingenfelter said there are enough differences to make Over’s accomplishments even more impressive.
 
“Forensics is quite different from the theater,” she said. “There’s no stage, no costumes, no makeup, no props. So being able to put on a performance and interpret a script truly by yourself is a challenge. She’s able to take a lot of acting talent seamlessly to forensics, but it’s different in that you can’t rely on anything other than your own performance. It’s a different environment from theater, not on a stage, but competing in classrooms or other spaces. Being able to adapt to that kind of performance can be different than performing in a theater.
 
“But she puts in a lot of time and energy into each piece, being able to get a sense for the emotions and the character in the scene that it calls for. She does a great job with that. And being able to switch back and forth. She’ll go from one round performing humorous to 10 minutes later performing a serious piece. She is really great at being able to adapt quickly in those situations.”
 
Over said when seeking out her forensic pieces, she’s always looking for ones that are very different and very challenging. And she loves the range of performing both humorous and serious pieces.
 
“It can be a challenge because to create a character, it’s very different switching between the two,” she said. “I just love them so much that I can’t imagine doing any other events.
 
“(Changing emotions) has always come easy to me. It really comes down to finding the method that works the best for you, which can take awhile and a lot of trial and error. I try to put people from my life into the situation I’m talking about. Ways I can relate to what’s happening. I also get very into character where sometimes I can disassociate and then truly become the character.
 
Over has already committed to the University of Oklahoma where she plans to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Acting, one of 15 accepted to the program from over 1,200 applications. She recently also got an offer from Syracuse, which admits 12 from roughly 1,000 applicants.
 
She also is considering getting a minor in digital marketing, something she’s been active with throughout high school. In addition to serving as the social media chair for many of her clubs, Over also holds down a part-time job as a digital marketer for a local Mary Kay sales director.
 
For all the theatrics that Over is involved with, it’s some behind the scenes work that she puts in at the school that Grover says impresses her even more. Throughout her tenure in student council and as student body president, Over has led the Adopt-a-Family project at Christmas time, organized a Robotics Meet at the school and planned an organized the Pioneer League Student Council Conference.
 
She also started an extended-learning internship at the school where she meets with a group of students with special needs and leads them through theater-type activities.
 
“She’s an extended learning kid and besides taking the massive amount of higher end classes, she works with our low incidence kids in acting classes – kids that have medical needs and everything else,” Grover said. “They just squeal when she comes in the room. They are so excited and she has dedicated her time to those kids and that’s one of the things that warms my heart the most.
 
“The leadership that she shows is making change in our school for the good. The girl is talented.”
 
It extends beyond the high school, as well. After attending the Hugh O’Brien Youth (HOBY) Leadership camp following her sophomore year, Over took on a challenge given to the campers of starting a community project. And she knew right away what she wanted to do.
 
So last winter she started a mental health group for Burlington girls in the sixth grade. She meets with the group that started with five members but now has eight once a week and during their time together they journal, talk about healthy mental strategies and share experiences.
 
“It all clicked with me,” Over said. “When I was in middle school I struggled with my mental health. Middle school is a crazy time in life. You’re trying to figure out how to be and who you are. I know I wish I would have had someone and so I felt like there were probably girls like me that could use someone in their life that wasn’t necessarily an adult but was someone close to their age. It’s nice for them to have a mentor, someone they know they can talk to and be themselves with.
 
“Really, it’s just about showing them self-worth. That they are enough doing whatever they are doing. I encourage them to try new things, like join sports and scholars bowl and go to the high school shows to see if that’s something they want to do in high school. It really is nice to have an outlet and a group of people that you align with. I just encourage them to be there for each other. It does create an understanding of each other that I know I didn’t have at that age.”
 
She has stayed with the group as they’ve moved onto the seventh grade and her hope is someone will step forward and carry on the program after she graduates next month.
 
Both Grover and Wilson acknowledged that if anyone could leave a lasting impression on how to provide service to one’s school and community, it’s Over.
 
“For younger kids, it’s so hard getting kids involved,” Grover said. “Watching her and how she manipulates it and makes kids excited, the younger kids look up to that. She’s a great role model that way, but she’s also a good listener. They feel comfortable going up to her with their own ideas or issues. They’re comfortable approaching her.
 
“I think the ideas she has for service learning is what we’ll miss the most. She’s always thinking about the community or school or other kids – what can we do for them. She’s an integral part of that. Because she’s out and very visible in the student body, she’s aware of the kids that might need help. Passing down those skills is what we’ll miss, having that eye. She is grooming those younger ones to have that innate skill of looking out for one another and making sure all of our students are taken care of.”
 
Wilson agreed.
 
“It’s incredible because it’s like the old phrase, ‘The rising tide lifts all boats,’” he said. “She comes in and gets involved with something whether it’s theater, forensics, scholars bowl, or whatever. It’s just the way she approaches everything and how dedicated she is it just makes everything else and everyone around her better. She makes the team, the organization, the production, whatever it is – it’s all going to improve and be better when she’s a part of it.
 
“And it’s not just because she’s good at what she does. She jumps in with both feet and wants anything that she’s a part of to get all of her energy. It’s so impressive because she has that mindset with everything and is involved with everything. She’s a blessing for the entire school and just makes us all – students and teachers included – want to be better for kids like that that want to do excellent things.”