RECOGNIZING ACHIEVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS – Voice Of The Township

Another academic year has wound up, and at the Wayne Township Trustee Board Meeting held at our office in downtown Fort Wayne on July 12 we awarded Recognizing Achievement Scholarships to three 2016 high school graduates who will be attending institutions of higher learning later this fall. Here are their stories.

Maya Gates, who graduated this June from Wayne High School, has been accepted to attend Indiana University at Bloomington. Maya was accepted to IU’s “Groups Scholar Program” meaning that she is the first in her family to attend a four-year college and will receive special consideration from them throughout her college career until graduation. She was recommended by her high school counselor to this and, for the RAS for her dedication to her studies (she graduated with a 3.77 grade point average on 4.00 scale) while maintaining a well-rounded life, participating in varsity basketball, track, and volleyball and volunteering at Lutheran Life Villages. She plans to study Neuroscience and will minor in Actuarial Science and Spanish.

Kenneth King graduated last month from South Side High School and wants to pursue a college degree in business. According to his teachers Kenneth distinguished himself with his leadership on and off the basketball court, persevering in his studies and his athleticism. His personal statement emphasized the importance of hard work, loyalty and friendship as key to his academic success.

Also graduating from South Side High School this past June was Romeo Morris. Romeo earned his school’s Academic Honors Diploma maintaining a 3.59 GPA in the challenging classes of South Side’s honors program. Romeo’s academic record and his recommendations as an intellectual leader led him to be accepted for admission this fall to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. According to my Internet research, “Morehouse is one of two historically black colleges in the country to produce Rhodes Scholars, and it is the alma mater of many African-American leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

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Once again this year I am so heartened by the stories of these young scholars and happy to be able to reward their accomplishments with the Recognizing Achievement Scholarship. I really believe that education is key to breaking the cycle of poverty in our society. This is the fourth year for the RAS program at Wayne Township. So far we have helped eighteen students with money they can use toward their college educations, not taxpayer dollars but donations that my staff and I have raised throughout the year starting at our December Holiday Celebration held this last year at the McMillen Park Community Center.

Please join me in congratulating our 2016 scholarship winners.