Baker University graduating senior Kharon Brown, of Lawrence, will receive his bachelor's degree as a Spanish and international studies major with a minor in philosophy. In addition to being president of the senior class, Brown is captain of the school's national runner-up football team.

As a student at Lawrence High School, Kharon Brown had traced the road map of his career.

“When I was in high school, I said I’d love to be president,” he said. “I actually have a timeline I made of running for president in 2036. I’d first serve in the Senate for eight years after four years in the House.”

Brown now knows that goal wasn’t realistic.

“I had to push it back four years when I decided to go to law school,” he said.

Brown will take a step toward his lofty goal Sunday when he graduates from Baker University with degrees in Spanish and international studies with a minor in philosophy. His studies reflect his desire to go to law school and, if not run for president, pursue a political career.

At the commencement, he will give an address as senior class president. Although Brown was mum on its content, one can expect he will share words of gratitude for the Baker faculty, staff and student body for his growth the past four years.

“Baker molded me to understand myself,” he said. “Baker taught me you always have the opportunity to change and change whatever community you are in. It all comes down to having the willpower to do it.”

His words, too, could include praise for the moral grooming he received at the Ninth Street Baptist Church in Lawrence and will almost certainly single out his mother, Nakia January. Brown said his mother kept him pointed in the right direction throughout his childhood, and he credits her with a decision that kept him focused on his studies and activities at Baker.

“I hardly ever came back to Lawrence my first two years,” he said. “I didn’t have my car. Mom was insistent on that.”

Brown found at Baker a school nearly the same size as Lawrence High.

“I loved it,” he said. “I thought it was great to take walks with your professors after class. You walk around campus and if you don’t know people by name, you know their face.”

An all-state defensive lineman at Lawrence High School, Brown came to Baker on a football scholarship. He was a three-year starter at linebacker, earning all-conference honors at middle linebacker his senior year. The Baker squad won the conference the past three years. Last fall, he was a captain on the Wildcat team that advanced to the NAIA national championship game before losing to St. Francis of Indiana, 38-17.

He found on the team a mentor in defensive coach Jason Thoren, the man who recruited him to the school where more than half the students participate in sports. He quickly made friends with teammates who lived on his dorm floor, Sione Maumau, Sam Wescott, James Valentine and Nadir Zayyad.

“They provided an intellectual challenge and a great diversity of experience,” he said. “They are my blood brothers.”

Wescott is the only one of the four friends who will graduate with Brown. Valentine and Zayyad transferred to other schools before their senior years to pursue engineering studies. Maumau died during his sophomore year.

“Really, he was one of my favorite people and one of the best who ever came through Baker,” he said of Maumau. “It was an experience that taught me the value of friendship, and to value those friendships every day. It’s something he gave me — never give up on a friend.”

Brown’s Spanish instructor at Baker, Sandra Schumm, said his academic focus was reflected in his enthusiasm for Hispanic literature with philosophical and metaphorical content.

“He wrote his senior project paper in Spanish about Christianity as a mirror in José Zorrilla’s ‘Don Juan Tenorio’ and Miguel de Unamuno’s ‘San Manuel Bueno, Mártir,’ and it definitely had a philosophical slant,” she said. “He will be completing a study abroad course this summer in Heredia, Costa Rica, and is extremely excited to learn more about that culture and to make his Spanish even more fluent.”

As for himself, Brown is confident that even in high school he was never perceived as just a football player. It was at LHS he first developed a taste for political life as a student council member his junior and senior year and in the history classrooms of Valerie Schrag.

Another formative influence was President Barack Obama.

“My family and I watched all his speeches and followed his campaign and presidency,” he said. “He was a great role model for me. The way he carries himself and his confidence, he’s the greatest role model for African Americans. I didn’t want to go to law school that much until I found out he taught law in Chicago. He’s the reason I fell in love with the University of Chicago. The whole city of Chicago, really.”

Brown said he now plans to start law school in the fall of 2018. He’ll use the months ahead to prepare for his LSAT. His goal is to be accepted into law school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., because of both its rank among the nation’s top law schools and its location in the center of the political world.

Before he does any of that, he’ll spend two months in Costa Rica, living with a host family, taking Spanish courses and working in a senior care center, he said.

“In my course of study, you’re required to study abroad,” he said. “I couldn’t do it before because of football.”

When he returns, he expects to hit the ground running.

“I plan to dig into my community as an activist when I come back from Costa Rica,” he said. “The next year in the Lawrence and Baldwin City area, I plan on being involved in the community quite a bit. I want to see where my talents can be used before I go to law school.”