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Scholarship Season Arrives As Church Provides Major Awards

    With just a few weeks remaining before high school graduation arrives, area organizations have begun the annual tradition of announcing scholarship awards.  Educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and area businesses combine to hundreds of scholarships to high school seniors throughout Lake County, with announcements coming regularly as groups award scholarships ahead of public high school graduation on May 22.
    One of the area’s most prolific, if not the most prolific, scholarship-awarding organizations hosted its annual awards ceremony on Sunday, with 20 young people receiving financial boost to their post-secondary educational efforts.   
    The First Presbyterian Church of Umatilla has been awarding funds for many years after a donation from the late Skip Crawford’s estate left the church with a substantial fund to work from.  Members of the congregation have overseen an aggressive giving campaign to support education of Umatilla - area students, a campaign which this year extended to two elementary aged youngsters.
    This year, the congregation awarded a whopping $237,000 in scholarships.
    On Sunday, the church featured a special service dedicated to the scholarship award recipients, with each being introduced and receiving a short biographical feature.  Scholarship chair Gail Tibbals and Reverend Dr. Hershel Don Yancey presented the award.  All of the students are from the Umatilla community and will be attending various schools, including the University of Florida, Lake Sumter State College, University of South Florida, University of Central Florida, Lake Tech, Florida Gulf Coast University, Seminole State College, and Santa Fe College.
    The program has historically been open to high school seniors, and is renewable for each of the following college years, but this year expanded to include investment in two students who are currently in the second grade.  Both received notification that they have been awarded full investment into a Florida Prepaid College Plan in each of their names.
    “First Presbyterian Church of Umatilla is grateful to the estate of the late educator Robert ‘Skip’ Crawford for the generous gift he left the church,” Tibbals said.  “Mr. Crawford wished for this gift to be used for the purpose of scholarships that benefited Christian youth.”