Hays ? While most children were learning to walk, Kate Denning was learning to read. By the time they graduated to bicycles, she was playing Bach on the piano.

It should come as no surprise, then, that while some people her age were earning bachelor’s degrees, the 21-year-old former Hays resident was earning a doctorate in computational neurobiology from the University of California at San Diego.

“I learned through the years that if people would just listen to Kate – including me – and give her a chance, she would accomplish the goals she set for herself,” said Deb Denning, Kate’s mother.

The eldest of three children, Kate Denning has been on the fast-track through school from the start. She skipped first and third grades and graduated from Hays High School at age 16. At the same time, she amassed 101 credit hours at Fort Hays State University, where she graduated a year later with a degree in physics.

And she still managed to make all A’s her senior year of high school.

“It was getting people to listen and give her the opportunities she deserved and had the ability for that was the tricky part of her education,” Deb Denning said. “The next step was to obtain those opportunities.”

Fort Hays State offered the flexibility to attend high school and college at once. There, Kate Denning became the youngest student ever to earn a degree in physics, department chairman Gavin Buffington said.

“After she got in here and the initial shock of having a 13-year-old in the physics department wore off, she was just one of the gang,” Buffington said.