Pictured from top left to bottom right; Sandy LeBatard, Stephen Songe, Jacki Thornburg, Maria Martinez, Dan Flanders, Kimberly Boling, Sandy Cox and Henry Furr. Not pictured but a contributor to the committee; Dave Philo.
The Ocean Springs Rotary Scholarship Program awards scholarships to local high school seniors. The program consists of reviewing several applications and identifying applicants for in person interviews. Scholarships are then awarded to qualifying students. The situation with COVID-19 hit just as the review of applications started. To get around the meeting constraints of the virus, committee meetings were conducted via video conference. And today, the committee spent the morning interviewing 9 students between the two local high schools via video conference. The interviews went better than expected. Committee and students did a great job considering the circumstances; no technological issues, and some very good questions and answers.
The committee did an outstanding job in this unprecedented environment and completed the application reviews and interviews on schedule. Scholarship award winners will be announced in the coming days. But we wanted to acknowledge the time and effort of the committee members to complete the program, providing much needed scholarships to local students.