Locals Honored at GHC Scholarship Reception

Georgia Highlands Colleges hosted its annual spring reception on April 19 at the Floyd campus in Rome to honor both scholarship recipients and donors. The college foundation made 102 awards totaling $92,000.

There are three newly established scholarships that were awarded this year: the James D. Maddox Memorial Scholarship, established and named after a founder of the college and the father of Rebecca Maddox, director and associate professor of nursing; the J. Randy Pierce Scholarship, honoring the recently retired president of the college; and the Lesley Graham Nursing Scholarship. Seventy-nine of the awards were provided through named scholarships. Another 23 students received emergency scholarships to get them through personal crises so they could stay in school.

All scholarship recipients received the award for the current 2011-2012 academic year.

Local recipients and the scholarships they received were:

• Alicia Speece of Dallas received the Felicia Claxton Memorial Scholarship. Established by Dr. Susan Claxton, associate professor of human services, in memory of her daughter Felicia.
• Heather Green of Dallas was one of the four recipients of the Follett Textbook Scholarship. Follett manages the bookstores on the Floyd and Cartersville campuses of GHC. The company awards $2,000 in funds for textbooks each year.
• Green also received the Lovie Borchardt Memorial Scholarship, which was established by the Alpha Nu Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa, an education sorority, in memory of Borchardt, a former education professor.
• Caleb John of Dallas received a GHC Foundation Scholarship, an award established by the foundation to help meet special needs such as tuition, fees and books so that students can stay in school and graduate. There are two categories of qualification: traditional students and non-traditional students (who have typically been out of high school for five years or longer). John received one of the scholarships for traditional students.
• Those receiving GHC Foundation Non-Traditional Scholarships were Speece and Dianna Vanderhoof of Dallas, and Matthew Kendall of Hiram.
• Jennifer Erhardt of Hiram received The Paulding Business Association Scholarship, which was established for students from Paulding County who attend Georgia Highlands College’s Paulding Campus.

Several donors and family members of those for whom scholarships were named also attended the celebration, including Jon and Gail Bloomfield and their daughter Cynthia Elsberry, who teaches physical education at GHC-Marietta; Jon and Phyllis Shanahan; Jim Cook, professor-emeritus; Susan Claxton, associate professor of human services; Annette Mitchell, bookstore manager for Follett; Ashley Ellington, president, and Tami Compton, treasurer, of the Junior Service League; Ed Henderson and his wife, Lesley’s, sister Laura Adams; Randy and Claire Pierce; Steve Edwards, former foundation board member and the leader in helping to establish the Jim and Leatha Richie Scholarship; and Theresa Perry from Pepperell High School for the Wesley C. Walraven Scholarship.