 Her first scholarships were courtesy of local men's clubs, the Elks and the Knights of Pythias, and allowed her to attend the University of Arizona.After studying there for a year (1954–55), Burroway won the "Mademoiselle" Magazine College Board Contest and spent part of the summer of 1955 in New York City as the magazine's Guest Editor.Burroway's first poem to be published in a national magazine was “The Rivals,” which appeared in "Seventeen" when Burroway herself was eighteen (June 1954).