PROVO — Do you Yegoo?
Better yet, do your kids Yegoo?
Ryan Keller does. The 23-year-old Brigham Young University student from Holladay spent last summer in Senegal and then wrote an article in French for the journal Yegoo on the separatist war in the nation's Casamance region.
The Cottonwood High School graduate's command of four other foreign languages makes it possible for him to converse with 2.5 billion of the world's people, a handy skill for someone who aspires to diplomacy. It also was part of an impressive resume that led USA Today to make him one of 20 college students on its 2004 All-USA Academic First Team.
Keller is the first BYU student to make the team — to be announced in today's edition of the national newspaper — in its 15-year history. Another BYU student, Joshua Hicks, earned an honorable mention for the second year in a row. Hicks, a senior, is a chemical engineering major from Las Vegas.
"The honorees tend to be outstanding students and broadly educated," said Tracy Wong Briggs, USA Today's program coordinator. "The judges look to see how well students are extending their education, and both of these men did that."
Keller founded Project Sahb — Sahb means "friend" in Arabic — to gather school supplies for Iraqi children.
"I liked the image of a 5-year-old in Provo giving a 5-year-old in Baghdad a box of crayons," Keller said. "What better way to get kids here to realize there are kids out there who don't have shoes, don't have crayons."
Keller believes education should make the world smaller, something his mother first recognized when her 12-year-old told her what he wanted to see during a vacation to the East Coast with friends and family.
"Other kids chose a famous pizza parlor or shopping centers," Jerri Camden said, "but Ryan wanted to see the headstone of Crispus Attucks."
The visit to the resting place of the black man who died in the Boston Massacre as the first casualty of the American Revolution drove home something important.
"It was cool to make that connection," Keller said. "I realized studying really matters."
His excitement has opened up a wide range of opportunities.
"Ryan is an enthusiastic student of politics, philosophy and public service and relishes learning in all ways," said Darren Hawkins, a political science professor. "I would not be surprised to see him as secretary of state someday."
Keller would love to work on U.S. foreign policy, either as a politician, a state department official or with the National Security Council.
His language skills should help. In addition to French, he speaks Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and K'ekchi, a Mayan language spoken in the highland of Guatemala, where he served a two-year LDS mission.
"When you learn a language you enter the world," he said. "If you go to a foreign country and you can't speak the language, it's like you're inside their world but still outside."
Keller has an activist streak that is apparent even when he sits still. His energy reserves sizzle and he admitted to long study binges that have fueled a 3.96 GPA.
He bleeds off that energy by skiing and rowing. He also organized Students Against Violence, part of a successful movement to dissuade the state legislature from allowing concealed weapons on university campuses.
"The lost Generation X defied the idea teenagers don't care about the world," he said.
A philosophy major, he plans to graduate in April if he lands a scholarship to Cambridge University in England. If not, he'll remain at BYU and prepare for law school.
He's conflicted about leaving BYU.
"I'm ready to go on to new things and new opportunities," he said one moment, then added, "Frankly, I'm sad to leave. I could stay as an undergraduate for another 10 years."
He scoffed at the idea he might be BYU's top student — he was nominated for the USA Today honor by Mary Cutler, an English professor — although he has published articles in two other academic journals and landed a $35,000 Truman Scholarship, one of 76 awarded to juniors committed to public service.
Keller believes a college education is a privilege that can improve an individual, a family, society and democracy.
"It's not about A's," he sad, "it's about learning about the world. You have four years till you're spit out into the world, and if you don't learn about it, then that education is wasted. I don't buy the smart thing. It has to do with hard work. A genius can get bad grades. It's persistence, your drive. Genius is a mutable concept. You can become a genius if you work hard enough."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com