The Hopkinsville Rotary Club has a new college scholarship for a select group of students who are willing to commit to teaching in Christian County Public Schools for at least four years after graduation.
Rotarian Andrew Wilson announced the Rotary Impact program during the club’s weekly meeting Tuesday at the Memorial Building.
Education is the initial career pathway for Rotary Impact, but future pathways could target students pursuing careers in other fields such as healthcare, agriculture and engineering, Wilson told Hoptown Chronicle in a phone interview.
“We are looking at other pathways in the near future,” he said.
The new scholarship program builds on Rotary Scholars, which was launched 10 years ago and covers two years of Hopkinsville Community College tuition for any student graduating high school with at least a 2.5 grade point average in Christian County.
Rotary Impact will continue that support for four students at Murray State University’s regional campus in Hopkinsville, allowing them to possibly graduate from college debt-free and immediately start working in the local school system.
The first students chosen for Rotary Impact were introduced at Tuesday’s meeting. They are Taylor Butler-Gilmore and Megan Grace, both juniors at Murray State, and Kaley Keel and Emma Sunderhaus, who are seniors.
Wilson said Rotarians Cody Noffsinger and Kelly Gates were instrumental in helping establish the new program.
The Hopkinsville Rotary Foundation, established in 2020, will provide an estimated $35,000 annually for the cost of Rotary Impact, said Wilson.
The scholarship’s name recognizes the long-lasting impact that a teacher can have on one student’s life.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
