Kyle Cooke’s time at Tarleton centered around faith and friendship

BY ANDREW UTTERBACK

Podcast Producer

There are only 6,800 or so people in Brock, Texas. It’s located about 40 miles west of Fort Worth and about 40 miles northeast of Stephenville, Texas. Stephenville is by all means a small town, but for Kyle Cooke, it’s like living in the city.

Cooke is a biomedical science major at Tarleton State University and is graduating spring of 2025.

He grew up with his older brother Colby and younger brother Carter on land with a pond right in their backyard where they could hunt and fish. Cooke’s family lived on the same street as his grandparents as well as his aunt and uncle.

Cooke considered going the Texas A&M route but ultimately decided on Tarleton.

“I came to Tarleton because I liked the size of the school and the proximity to my hometown. Initially, I wanted to pursue medical school after my time at Tarleton, but I really didn’t know what was out there in the field of medicine. I now plan on pursuing Physician’s Assistant School after I graduate in hopes of being a PA. As a PA, I’ll work under the supervision of a physician to see patients and meet their needs,” Cooke said.

Cooke’s college experience, like many other Tarleton students, started at Duck Camp.

“I was super super grateful, looking back, to go to Duck Camp, be a part of the traditions and push myself a little bit to make some friends and just get involved,” Cooke said.

Cooke’s freshman year included getting involved with Paradigm, a weekly worship night for college students and young adults. Cooke not only went every Thursday night but also went on the Paradigm mission trip.

“I came into Tarleton as a freshman, leaving my high school friends behind and having to make new friends again for the first time since the 4th grade. This was a hard adjustment for me, starting from zero and longing for community,” Cooke said. “I knew that I shouldn’t just make friends with whoever was in front of me at the time. I prayed and waited for God to answer my prayer and bring me godly friends. That prayer was answered when I went on the Paradigm mission trip during spring break. I have been in two weddings so far with guys and girls that I befriended on that trip, and those friends have been one of the biggest blessings God has ever given me.”

During his freshman year, Cooke also learned new skills and disciplines, like living on his own, good study habits, how to prioritize his time, how to read the Bible and have a deeper prayer life and what living for Jesus could really look like.

It was this year that Kyle met someone who made a profound impact on his life.

“My RL, Preston Coughlin, quickly became one of the most influential people in my life,” Cooke said. “We would hang out every week and get honest about what our current life was like, read Scripture and pray with each other for about two hours. I wanted to model my life after the way he pursued Jesus, the way he never missed a Sunday service, the consistency he had in reading his Bible daily, the way he prayed with expectant faith for God to answer and the way he valued others above himself. Outside of our time meeting together, we would go to the gym, go to Paradigm… and hang out at each other’s houses, just doing life together.”

Cooke’s sophomore year saw him in a chemistry research internship at Tarleton where he used plant-derived polysaccharides as a non-toxic gene delivery system to provide safer cancer treatment.

At this point, he was accustomed to “living life in college” and was able to apply the traits, skills and disciplines he had learned the year before.

This was also the year that he became a Challenge leader, a small group program associated with Paradigm.

“As a challenge leader, a leader of a small group Bible study, I had taken on the responsibility of teaching and leading a group of college students closer to Christ,” Cooke said.

This year also turned out to be one of the busiest.

“I tried to take it all on. I wanted to be a part of as much as possible. I had a job, was a challenge leader, was doing cancer research and was a full-time college student in the middle of classes like organic chemistry,” Cooke said. “I was drowning at times between school work, planning lessons and working. I learned a valuable lesson that year: Each ‘thing’ I was involved in was a good thing, but even good things, when you are a part of too many of them, can start to have negative effects when you spread yourself too thin.”

At the end of Cooke’s sophomore year, his close friend, Griffin Berend, passed away.

“I made a friend here at Tarleton my freshman year who invited me to the church I am now still a member of to this day, FBC Stephenville, and his name is Griffin Berend. He convinced me to go on the Paradigm mission trip to Phoenix, Arizona, that would go on to give me the friends I had earnestly prayed for and a college ministry to serve in,” Cooke said.

Cooke and Berend had quickly become close friends.

“He was funny, confident, a true servant and so full of life. We had served alongside each other as challenge leaders our sophomore year and were planning on serving again our junior year. During the end of our sophomore year in April was when “life” happened to me. Griffin passed away unexpectedly. His passing affected our church community as well as his family and so many others. I was at the height of involvement in my college career, had never even lost a great grandparent, and now was learning how to grieve the loss of not just someone for the first time, but a dear friend,” Cooke said.

Kyle is able to reflect on Griffin’s passing years later and find peace in God.

“Looking back just over two years later, I am now able to see how God redeemed such a situation, no matter the hurt, to His glory,” Cooke said. “Because of Griffin’s faith in Jesus, I do not stay in sorrow, but rejoice that in just one lifetime, I will be reunited with him in the presence of God for eternity. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.’ For now until my time here on earth expires, I strive to comfort others in their sufferings just as God and the community around me extended that comfort and compassion to me in my suffering.”

Cooke credits his steady position in life today to Griffin and his friendship.

“I am so thankful to have known Griffin and how he pushed me to be all that God desires me to be. I stand here today because of the faithfulness of a faithful friend,” Cooke said.

Cooke’s advice to those going through similar hardship is to lean on those close to you.

“I think grief looks different for everyone. Community is so important in a time of grief and loss,” Cooke said. “Don’t shut yourself out to other people; lean into them. The Bible talks about carrying each other’s burdens, and that was a time when I couldn’t carry my burden. I needed people there to cry on their shoulder to listen to my hurt and help me navigate it.”

Following this hardship, Cooke’s junior year was one of “restoration.”

“I cut back on my involvement in the various areas I applied myself the previous year,” Cooke said. “I chose to work odd jobs with my friends over a steady desk job, served on Paradigm’s street team and didn’t continue cancer research. These new decisions gave me the proper time I needed to allocate to each area of my life. With the time I gained back that year, my number one priority was to not just survive each semester but give myself room to grow into who I wanted to become.”

Cooke’s senior year of college saw him go back to being involved in some of the activities from his sophomore year.

“My senior year I was recharged and ready to step back into more responsibilities and opportunities. I became a Challenge Leader again, began working as a medical scribe and started to give serious attention to my life after my undergraduate degree, all while pursuing intentionality with the time I had left with my friends and ministry,” Cooke said.

This year also was a time of trusting God and walking in faith.

“In my spiritual walk, my senior year has been all about walking by faith. I have learned spiritual disciplines, applied them for the past 4 years and now the Lord has asked me to have positive assurance in things yet not seen,” Cooke said.

Looking back on his four years at Tarleton, Cooke says his greatest accomplishments are the difference he made in the lives of others.

“My greatest accomplishments at Tarleton aren’t on paper. My greatest accomplishments at Tarleton are hopefully living on in the people I was blessed with the opportunity to invest in,” Cooke said.

As he moves on to apply for PA schools during his gap year, he gives three pieces of advice to incoming freshmen.

The first is to trust God with your future.

“Make plans but hold them loosely,” Cooke said. “We all dream of what we would like to do or who we want to become, but life can happen in just a moment. Proverbs 16:9 says: ‘In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.’ So make your future career plans, but be willing to let God open doors you should walk through and close doors you shouldn’t.”

The second is to enjoy the next four years.

“Make the most of your time here at Tarleton,” Cooke said. “Don’t become so absorbed in your own craft that you forget to look around and enjoy the current moment you are living in or the people around you that you call friends. Also don’t be in such a rush to get out of this place either… Enjoy the blessings you have here to have your first class at 11:00, to go to the rec pretty much whenever you want and to have so much time to invest into your relationships and whatever career path you are pursuing.”

The third is simply to try new things.

“Don’t be afraid to step out and try something new either. So many of us want the perfect scenario before we are willing to invest in a new opportunity. But that is the beauty of trying something new – you probably will mess up or could have done it better another way, but that is how we learn and grow,” Cooke said.

As he moves on from his college years, Kyle thanks his parents, Matt Mabry, Drake Wayland, Preston Coughlin, Colton Fowler, JW Weiss and Jesus.

His advice to the world is this:

“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him,” Cooke said. “That’s John 14:6. If you are searching for peace, hope and a purpose, Jesus is the only one who can truly satisfy those holes in your heart. God is love, and he wants nothing more than for you to run into his arms and begin a lifelong, eternal relationship with him. I have that relationship with Him, the Creator of the Universe; isn’t that mind blowing? And you can, too… Change your heart to a posture of ‘not my way Lord, but yours.’ I believe that Jesus Christ paid for my sins, and my life is yours. I follow you now Jesus.”