Annual Report Quotes
Bettie Clark of Houston made a donation of $300,000 in scholarships to Southern Arkansas University in honor of her siblings Mary Alice Wallace and Billy Wallace, who attended the University and her youngest brother Robert James Wallace. Her parents, Carl and Ona Wallace attended SAU when it was the Third District Agricultural School.
The scholarship money benefits the nursing program at SAU.
“When I went to nursing training down in Houston, I got to go on a scholarship and that is one reason I wanted to give something back,” Clark, who became a Registered Nurse, said.
As life progressed and she and her husband, the late McGinnis Clark found much success in the lumber industry in Houston, they decided they wanted to make an impact on others who were in the same situations they had been in as young people.
“God had blessed me and my husband so much that we just wanted to help somebody else.”
QUOTE TWO
Monica Coker, a senior majoring in agriculture education from Ward hopes to become a teacher and work for the National FFA or Farm Bureau.
Her scholarship is renewable up to four years and is frankly the reason she is able to be at Southern Arkansas University, she said.
“I wouldn’t be in college if I didn’t have that scholarship. My family has never had the capabilities to pay for college so my siblings and I were told early on that if we hoped to attend we would have to find a way to get there ourselves. We have worked hard since the eighth grade trying to make the best grades we could and working on building relationships with people who could help us find the scholarship money.”
QUOTE THREE
Ashley Moss, famous at Southern Arkansas University for riding Molly down the sidelines at each football game has also made a name for herself as a competitor with the University rodeo team where she barrel races and team ropes. Moss of Sarepta, Louisiana, said the new make her life, and more importantly, the life of Molly and her two horses, a lot better.
“The other stables were falling apart so new stables were so badly needed,” said Moss, who has been the mascot for the University for the past four years.
After graduation, Moss will continue professionally training horses. Her major is agricultural science.
QUOTE FOUR
Valerie Norris of Fort Worth was drawn to Southern Arkansas University by a Presidential Scholarship that pays her tuition, room and board and a $500 stipend each semester. She is an accounting and finance major and plans to attend law school after graduation so she can one day work as a corporate attorney.
“I’ll take having to work on campus any day for extra spending money than worrying about loans for college,” Norris said. “The financial aid was like having a big burden lifted.”
QUOTE FIVE
Al Torres, a senior from Corrigan, Texas said the hefty scholarships he received while attending SAU, including a full paid departmental music department scholarship he will use this year, is helping him fulfill his dream. His dream is to become a band director or music teacher.
“For me the scholarships show me that all my hard work has finally paid off,” Torres said. “And being in band is something that has always been a part of my life and I can’t see myself doing anything else.”
