‘True Gentleman’ Hurst juggles hectic student career
March 8th, 2006
By Kevin Rayburn
Brent Hurst
University of Louisville engineering student Brent Hurst knows about juggling. In the mid-1990s, he and his twin brother Brian learned to juggle knives, torches and machetes and performed at the White House as part of the Meyzeek Middle School juggling team at the 1995 Easter Egg Roll.
With a friend, the two brothers also performed at Kentucky Kingdom, and in one performance selected as their “volunteer from the audience” then-Gov. Paul Patton.
“They surrounded the governor and passed knives and torches to each other,” said their mother Tracy, recalling how she and her husband watched in horror. “We were nervous wrecks. I told them never to pull something like that again.”
Now Hurst juggles more conventional things — like schedules. Brent and Brian enrolled in the J.B. Speed School of Engineering at U of L in 2001 and are on track to complete their master of engineering degrees in industrial engineering this spring. Brian has earned distinction on U of L’s track team.
Brent took a different path that is earning him national academic distinction.
Recently, Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity named Hurst its True Gentleman of the Year, the highest undergraduate honor the national fraternity presents.
The honor is awarded based on academic achievement, fraternity and campus involvement, leadership community service, character and other criteria.
“It’s a great recognition,” Hurst said, “but I don’t do things to win awards. Those are nice, but they’re not my objective. I do things to increase my experiences and to meet new people I otherwise wouldn’t.”
Hurst is chapter president of his fraternity, which he led to a recent ranking as the second best chapter among the nation’s 330.
With typical humility, Hurst credits his chapter’s success to others.
“So many people made this happen. The main thing I bring to all this is organization — setting up events, making sure they happen in an orderly way, making sure everyone is getting the grades they should and things like that.”
Hurst, who has volunteered more than 600 hours of community service, said the secret to his success is simple: Be organized and return phone calls.
“I’ve had 12 leadership positions on campus and had six offices at one time,” he said. “I’ve learned how to move up in the organizations and learned what it takes to run them, just like a business.”
His many honors are too numerous to list, but among them are Greek Man of the Year and Greek Volunteer of the Year. He maintains a 4.0 grade point average, and has earned almost 20 academic awards and seven scholarships, including a full-tuition U of L Trustees Presidential Scholarship.
After getting his engineering master’s degree, Hurst plans to enroll in U of L’s School of Dentistry and pursue an MBA combining dentistry and business. He said he could eventually apply his skills to dental or facial reconstruction.
Hurst’s volunteer efforts include helping patients and staff in the emergency room at Floyd Memorial Hospital in New Albany, Ind., tutoring students at U of L’s Math Resource Center and babysitting the children of single mothers for the community group Project Women.
And he still entertains kids by juggling at area schools and events.
“I’m coming off the busiest time of my life,” Hurst said. “I’m only taking 19 hours this semester, and a lot of that is my master’s thesis. I’m doing other things while other students sit in their dorms and play with their X-Box.
“My girlfriend Ashley is teaching me to relax a little bit, though,” he said. “I never had time for TV before, but now she’s got me hooked on American Idol.”
