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Tinsley Thompson

“I fell in love with King. Everyone is so nice. I love the small community feel and how the professors are willing to work one-on-one with you.”
Tinsley Thompson, Biology

Always Wear a Smile – King University Student Profile

If you are a music lover, especially country music then you are familiar with Nashville, Tennessee, the most populous city in the state with a metro population hovering around 2 million. Founded on Christmas Eve 1779, Nashville has defined itself, along with being musically diverse, as a culturally astute city welcoming influences from across the globe. It is home to the only replica of the Greek Parthenon (the largest indoor statue in the Western Hemisphere) and has displayed some of the only Egyptian architecture anywhere in the United States. It is within this city synonymous with glitz, glitter, and celebrity sightings where King University softball and cheerleading standout, Tinsley Thompson, a focused and extremely driven young woman, was born. “By the age of five, I knew I someday wanted to be a dentist. My mom is a dentist too with her own practice,” Tinsley said.

When Tinsley was in the 6th grade her family relocated from Music City to the city of Gallatin a bedroom commuter suburb located about 30 miles northeast of Nashville. It was in Gallatin that Tinsley put down roots. An athletic kid growing up, she learned that she was a multi-talented athlete excelling at both softball, cheerleading, and even basketball. As she grew older, she also kept getting taller, and only continued to develop at sports. “I was recruited by King to play softball,” Tinsley said. She recalls her visit to the school. “I fell in love with King. Everyone is so nice. I love the small community feel and how the professors are willing to work one-on-one with you.”

Tinsley enrolled at King and joined both the softball and cheerleading teams and declared her major to be cell and molecular biology and pre-med. “My freshman year was really different because of Co-vid. It wasn’t the typical experience, but we had to adjust,” Tinsley said. Now a sophomore, and Co-vid starting to go away, Tinsley and the rest of her teammates are able to have the normal collegiate sport and campus experience that one would expect at a university.

With such a busy schedule Tinsley doesn’t have much time to do other things, and yet she is active outside of school and sports. “When I am not at school I like to work at my mom’s dental practice and gain experience. After I graduate from dental school I plan to work in her office and eventually take over the practice,” Tinsley said. Tinsley admits to being fairly extroverted and says that King helped her become more outgoing through participating in King activities like the Launch program introducing new students to King. As a dentist, she will communicate with many different people, from a variety of backgrounds, and she looks forward to it and wants to be able to build relationships with her patients while providing them with excellent care.

Tinsley is also devoted to service and plans on volunteering along with her mother at Healing Hands, an organization whose mission is to “aid, equip, and empower those in need around the world in the name of Jesus Christ so they might experience God’s healing grace.” Last year their plans were dashed with the pandemic outbreak. She has an easy disposition and a good sense of humor that makes people feel comfortable in her presence and will help her acquire and retain patients. She is one of the rare students that has known her road, understood what she has to do to make her dreams a reality, and is determined to see it through. “I also love to travel. I have been lucky and gotten to travel all over the world. One aspect of becoming a dentist that is also motivating for me is knowing that I will be financially secure, so I can do things like travel. That is very important to me,” Tinsley said.

She has been pragmatic about her life since she was young, she excels at everything she does thus far, and her future patients don’t yet know how lucky they will be to have her looking after their dental hygiene and blemish-free smiles.

If you are interested in King University’s cell and molecular biology program please click here https://www.king.edu/programs/stem/biology-major/

Interested in King University’s Women’s Softball program please click here https://www.kingtornado.com/sports/softball?path=softball

Interested in King University’s Cheerleading program please click here https://www.kingtornado.com/sports/cheerleading