The Oaklawn Foundation awarded 118 scholarships totaling $360,000 during its annual scholarship reception earlier this week.
Since 2007, the foundation has awarded $2.5 million in scholarships to 812 recipients.
Oaklawn Foundation Scholarships are awarded specifically to Garland County residents with a minimum educational requirement of a GED. The scholarships provide opportunities for students seeking vocational or technical training, two- and four-year degrees, and master's and doctoral degrees.
"I'm overwhelmed to celebrate your diversity and your opportunity to make your life the very best it can be," Kerry Lockwood-Owen, chairwoman of the Oaklawn Foundation Scholarship Committee, said during Tuesday's reception. "We want you to continue your journey. Garland County is so proud to have you as our representatives."
Lockwood-Owen said this year's group of applicants is "an ageless, diversified group" where the only thing that matters to the foundation is "that you have the best opportunity that you can."
"You are successful because of who you are," she said.
Ira Kleinman, assistant vice president of the foundation's board, said their mission is to improve the quality of life for the people of Hot Springs and Garland County.
"How special is that? Our purpose is to improve the quality of life here in our community," he said. "We've supported the Oaklawn Center on Aging which helps our senior citizens. We have helped fund the creativity and innovation complex -- the construction of this complex -- at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts. And we're contributing toward the Hospitality and Tourism Program right here at National Park College. That's just a few of the ways that we've given back to the community."
Of the scholarships awarded, 115 were $3,000 each. Three scholarships in the amount of $5,000 included the Darrell and Shirley Meyer Memorial Scholarship awarded to Christopher Reyna, of Cutter Morning Star High School, the Bob Freeman Memorial Leadership Award given to Karen Navarette, of Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and the Melinda Gassaway Journalism Scholarship awarded to Sidra Hanson, of Lakeside High School.
Shauna Wilson, a 2019 doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences college of pharmacy and three-time scholarship recipient, encouraged her fellow recipients to never give up on their goals no matter their circumstance.
"Not only will I be the first member of my family to get a doctorate degree, but I'll be the first member of my family to get a college degree," Wilson said. "At the age of 31 as a wife, a step-mom and a full-time employee, my husband and I looked at each other and we were wondering, 'Where do we want to be? Is there where we're going to be, living paycheck to paycheck and not being all we can be?'
"That's when I decided I would continue my pharmacy career, go as high as I could go and become a pharmacist. That's when I began driving the five minutes it takes to get here to National Park and finished my prerequisites that I could here for pharmacy school and then went to UALR and finished the rest of it."
Wilson said she did not get accepted to pharmacy school on her first try, and on her second attempt she was placed on an alternate list.
"That was a hard blow but it didn't stop me," she said. "All my pharmacists kept calling and bombarding the pharmacy school admissions, letting them know what a mistake they were making."
In thanking the foundation for their investment in her education, Wilson said the scholarship allowed her "to continue to be a wife and a step-mom, and I was able to spend every evening with my family."
"Benjamin Franklin once said 'An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest,'" she said. "I appreciate the investment that you made in me and I cannot wait to share my knowledge and skill serving the community of Garland County as a pharmacist."
Eric Lenox, teacher at Hot Springs Junior Academy and wrestling coach at Hot Springs World Class High School, said because of the foundation scholarship, he was able to purchase with his own savings educational apps for his students as well as wrestling shoes for his team.
"It's an honor and a privilege to be a recipient of the scholarship again," he said.
As a teacher in the alternative learning environment, Lenox said that often all his students need, like most people, is someone who believes in them.
"Whatever that thing is that you want, that you fail constantly every time and you keep failing at it -- it's coming and keep working at it," he said.
Lenox said he took his Praxis exams 11 times before he finally passed. Defeated, he said, he confided in his mother about his concern that maybe teaching was not what he was meant to do.
"She said 'OK, take it one more time and I'll pay for it.' And I'll be darned if I didn't pass," he said.
Like his mother and like he has done for his students, Lenox said the Oaklawn Foundation believed in him.
"They believe in us, the people in this room," he said. "Sometimes that's all it takes to get the ball rolling on your dreams."
Local on 05/26/2018