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The advice that I would give to freshmen is that grades are important. It is Important each and every year to apply yourself to your studies. Also it is never too soon to be thinking about your future education: where you will go and what you plan to be.
The one wish I have is that we might get an opportunity to honor all our scholarship recipients at a Rotary meeting, so that our club could see the young men and women that we are honoring. Unfortunately, the naming of the scholarship recipients comes at the end of school and once school is out it is hard to get them at a meeting. I would like to see us increase the amount that we are giving. A thousand dollars doesn’t go as far as it use to. This is something the scholarship committee plans to look at.
Dr. Tom Martin.
Besides Dr. Tom Martin, committee members are Mallory Lawrence, and H. B. Quinn. The Opportunity based grants are headed by Beth Mann, Dr. Scott Sutherland, Donna McNichols and Brent Thompson.
The work that Beth has done is remarkable. She has almost single handedly taken our scholarship program to new levels. If not for her, we would not even be close to where we are now.
We will again give 15 $1000 scholarships. I’m not sure how much money we have to operate with. I do know that is a sizable amount. Of course what we don’t use, will be used by the Grant Committee. We will also be using a sizable amount for renewables.I think it is great that half of every dollar we raise goes to scholarships. By doing this, we, as a club, have demonstrated how important education is. It was and is a daring move, because it limits in some ways what we can do in other areas. So far this hasn’t been a problem and I hope that it never is.
Rotary has always possessed those individuals who have been successful in their lives. I believe a part of that success is due to the educational level of our members. We realize how important an education is to success. Therefore from the beginning, we have emphasized education by our commitment to scholarship.
The last two years we have given 15 scholarships. The scholarships can be used at any institution of higher education and they can be used for any educational purpose—tuition, room and board, books, computer, etc.
The scholarship is not restricted by geography. As a scholarship committee we look at academics and school and community participation. We look at ACT and SAT scores, ranking in the class, the types of classes that were taken.. I’m not sure what you were asking about additional funds?
Students can pick up an application at the guidance office at Trigg County High School or get one at the Board of Education office. If they have any questions about the application, my name and number is listed on the application and they can contact me.
Since we have instituted a grant program, we are looking more closely at academics rather than need. If we expand, it would be in the area of the amount given rather than more scholarships.
The applications for this year’s scholarship need to be in by April 8th. After this date, grant information will go out and then toward the first of June renewable information will be given out.
In 2005 the Rotary Club issued 30 NEW Grants for a Total of $20,250.00. The Club renewed 21 Grants from 2003 and 2004 in the amount of $14,050.00. The Grant total was $34,300. This, in addition the Scholarship Awards.
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