Rachel Gallardo, left, and Appalachian Chancellor Sheri Everts are all smiles on the Kidd Brewer Stadium field during halftime of the 2018 Homecoming football game. Photo by Chase Reynolds ’17
2018 Top of the Rock — a rock for many By Alex Jansen
Appalachian’s Top of the Rock recipients are recognized for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the success of others. Rachel Gallardo, the 2018 recipient, certainly qualifies. The senior nutrition and foods major, whose concentration is dietetics, is manager for Appalachian’s wrestling team and percussion section leader in the Marching Mountaineers. As a member of the Broken Pancreas Club, the Hispanic Student Association and the Appalachian Student Dietetics Association, Gallardo is part of a support system for many.
“Wrestling is tough like diabetes,” she said. “Watching them win, it’s great, but when they lose, emotionally it’s really hard. I try to be there and be that emotional neutrality, even for the coaches. It is more than keeping score. It is being there and showing that support. “I love knowing that I am doing my part to further the involvement of women in this sport,” Gallardo said. She said she aspires to be a coach, to start her own wrestling club program and to “spread the good word” about a sport she says isn’t as mainstream as others. Representing more than the diabetic community
Gallardo, of Eden, North Carolina, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 3, learned from two health caregivers and her parents the value of a support system.
Gallardo was representing the Broken Pancreas Club, Appalachian’s chapter of the College Diabetes Network, when she was named Top of the Rock.
‘Wrestling is tough like diabetes’
“There are so many young people who live with this illness in silence, and they sit and they suffer alone, and it’s not fair.” That is her motivation for studying dietetics, and why she is proud to be the megaphone for the diabetic community.
As the wrestling team’s manager, Gallardo keeps score and time, manages the database and handles office duties, but for her, it goes beyond that. 68 • 2019