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TRADITIONAL STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS

Ellery Ammons will graduate from St.Mary's Episcopal School in Memphis in May of 2012. At St. Mary's Ellery is involved with the Debate Club, of which she was a founder during her freshman year. She has served as the club's president and now serves as Advisor to the President. Through de-bate Ellery has come to appreciate politics and community involvement. She is also a leader of the Latin Club, the yearbook, the Visual Arts Club, and the Senior Leadership Team at St. Mary's as well as a member of the Na-tional Honors Society. In the community Ellery has volunteered with Youth Striving for Excellence, United Cerebral Palsy, Hope House, Memphis Bo-tanic Gardens and the Brooks Art Museum. As Fundraising Chair of the St. Mary's Community Fund, a student run organization, Ellery has been able to participate in event planning; this past year the group was able to award over $30,000 in grants to children's programs in the Memphis area. Ellery has been a Girl Scout for 13 years; she completed her Girl Scout Gold Project this year, compiling pictures of the May 2011 flood-ing around Memphis and creating a database through the Memphis Public Library. Ellery hopes to attend Furman University, taking a double major in Education and American History, and earning her B.A. and M.A. through a five year program. She would like to teach Middle or High School.

Caitlyn Shelton will graduate from Lawrence County High School (LCHS) in May of 2012. Caitlyn is the recipient of numerous awards, notably the Presidential Award from President Obama for Environmental Stewardship and the National Presidential Service Award in Gold from President Bush. She also won the Outstanding Participation Award as Organizer of TEAM GREEN and is involved in numerous environmental organizations. Among her many activities she is a member of the National Society of High School Scholars, President of the Key Club, Feature Editor for the Wildcat newspa-per and President of the 4-H Honor Club. Caitlyn is National Honor Society Public Relations Officer for LCHS. She is an All A Honor Roll Member. Cait-lyn is also a member of the Lawrence County Community Theater and the Southern Tennes-see Area Arts Repertory. She performed a ballet which she choreographed to "America the Beautiful" for the TN Children of the American Revolution at the Parthenon in Nashville. In her community Caitlyn has helped organize Bowling 4 Babies, Socks 4 Seniors and "America Re-cycles Day" in Lawrence County with Representative Joey Hensley. She also helped to organ-ize Gulf Coast Clean Up for the Ocean Conservancy and volunteer activities for the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge. Caitlyn plans to pursue a B.A. and an M.A. in either Environmental Sci-ence or Education and perhaps apply to the Teach for America program.

Kayla Segars will graduate from Cocke County High School in May of 2012. Kayla excels at math and chemistry, and after job shadowing a chemical engineer at SI Group Kayla decided to pursue this career choice. She plans to attend Vanderbilt University and become a chemical engineer. Kayla is the recipient of the Community Service Award completing 224 hours since 2008. Through her involvement with Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, Kayla has received the Academic Award, Naval Science III Out-standing Cadet 2010-2011, and Staff of the Year Award 2010. In NJROTC Kayla served as a Platoon Commander her sophomore year, as Administra-tive Officer her junior year, and now serves as Battalion Commander (Commanding Officer). As such she is responsible for one hundred and sev-enty-five cadets/students; she supervises and manage all Battalion functions, ceremonies and routines, and works at every community service event. She is a Section Leader in the march-ing band which has won numerous awards. Kayla received the Jesus Garcia Humanitarian Award in 2008 and placed first in the AMVETS Essay Contest. Kayla is also very involved in music leadership and theater at her church.

NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS

Janet Cooper is a student in Radiologic Technology at Southwest Tennes-see Community College (STCC) in Memphis working part time as a student radiologist at Mid South Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic. Previously she worked as an Animal Care Technician at the University of Memphis, providing daily husbandry and medical care to animals in various research programs and training and supervising student workers. Janet has also worked as an Ani-mal Keeper at the Memphis Zoo and the Little Rock Zoo. After seeing can-cer's impact on people in her life, Janet decided to pursue studies in Radiol-ogy Technology; she will graduate from STCC in May and hopes to pursue her B.S. degree. Janet is currently President of the STCC Radiology Club and on the Dean's List at STCC. She initiated a team to race in the local Susan Komen 'Race for the Cure' which then placed 3rd in the college category for fundraising. She attended the STCC Leadership Institute in July and was one of 11 who completed the training and received certification. She is a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, Upsilon Chapter and has participated in several chapter activities including collecting teddy bears for the Child Advocacy Center and supplies for overseas Armed Forces troops. Janet has been a Troop Leader, advi-sor and volunteer for the Girl Scouts Heart of the South Council since 1999. She enjoys work-ing with teenage girls, guiding them through a multitude of activities from planning outdoor skills workshops for younger Scouts to planning and carrying out a 2 week trip to Europe funded by their own Christmas tree lot and many car washes.

Lori Gilliam is a student in Business Systems Technology at the Tennes-see Technology Center in Crossville. Since graduating from high school Lori worked for Robinsons Manufacturing and for La-Z-Boy. After she became a dislocated worker in January 2010, she decided to change her career path and to go back to school at the age of 42. She has worked to keep an A av-erage since she started school and will be graduating with honors in Decem-ber of 2011. She volunteers as Secretary for the Student Leadership Coun-cil at the technology center and is active with school projects. Lori is also an active volunteer in her church.

Nikki Smith is a student at Roane State Community College (RSCC) study-ing Business. She also works at Walgreen's Pharmacy in Harriman as a Certified Photo Tech and Beauty Consultant. Previously she worked as Of-fice Manager for G&L Service in Oak Ridge. After graduating from high school, Nikki enrolled at RSCC but unfortunate family medical problems caused her to miss many days and she was forced to put-off her education. Nikki was able to re-enroll in August 2011 and though struggling with adapt-ing to being back in college after so long she feels like she is right where she belongs. She hopes to own her own business one day. Her plan is to start a company that will aid emergency workers in their efforts to save lives by providing them with tools to help navigate through homes so that they will be able to reach people more quickly in cases of emergency. In her community Nikki volun-teers with food preparation and delivery for the elderly. She has walked in the Relay for Life for the past 6 years and has had the highest raised donations by a single person for 2 years. Re-cently Nikki also started helping with fostering abandoned and abused pet rabbits after discov-ering that they have a high rate of abandonment. She hopes to create a rabbit rescue organi-zation.