World Drum Corps Hall Of Fame Announces 2010 Scholarship Winners
The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame has helped ease the financial burden for five students who recently started their new school years at some of the country?s best-known colleges and universities by awarding each student a $1,000 scholarship.
Hall of Fame members are invited each year to nominate a family member to receive a scholarship award of $1,000. The selection committee chooses the winners strictly on merit. To avoid any perception of bias, the names of the student nominees are not revealed to committee members until scholastic and extra-curricular achievements are reviewed and the selections are made.
In order to insure that the award is used for college or university studies, the Hall of Fame award is paid directly to the school.
This year?s winners, their Hall of Fame sponsors and their fields of study are as follows.
Ross Cooper, sponsored by Dick Filkins, is studying Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. When the school was founded in 1872 as a land-grant college it was named Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. Virginia Tech, now a comprehensive, innovative research university, has the largest full-time student population in Virginia, including more than 30,000 full-time students. Located in Blacksburg, it has nine colleges and a graduate school.
Nicholas McGrath, sponsored by Irene McGrath, is studying Geology and Astronomy at Monroe Community College (MCC), which was established in Rochester in 1961 as a unit of the State University of New York when community colleges were just beginning to take root across the country. The establishment of MCC was led by local physician Dr. Samuel J. Stabins, who recognized the need to prepare students to work in local hospitals and health care facilities. The first Board of Trustees comprised Rochester?s finest professionals in medicine, business, education and law.
Kristen Meyers, sponsored by Wes Meyers, is studying Fashion Merchandising in midtown Manhattan at LIM College, which was established in 1939 as the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising and acquired its current name in 2009. Maxwell F. Marcuse, an authority and pioneer in the fields of education and fashion, was asked by leading retailers to create an educational institution for the business of fashion and merchandising. LIM College prepares students for careers in every aspect of the business of fashion. At the undergraduate level, LIM offers majors in Fashion Merchandising, Management, Marketing and Visual Merchandising.
Lindsay Bello, sponsored by Bob Peterson, is studying Pre-Medicine, Pre-Therapy in Health Sciences at the University of Florida (UF), one of only 17 public land-grant universities belonging to the Association of American Universities. In 1853, the state-funded East Florida Seminary took over the Kingsbury Academy in Ocala. The seminary moved to Gainesville in the 1860s and then consolidated with the state’s land-grant Florida Agricultural College. In 1905, by legislative action, the college became a university and was moved to Gainesville. With more than 50,000 students, UF is now one of the largest universities in the country.
Christopher Gumke, sponsored by Bob Zarfoss, is studying Aerospace Engineering at Penn State University, a multi-campus public research university founded in 1855 as an agricultural college. Its administrative and research hub is located at the University Park campus, but Penn State has 23 additional locations across Pennsylvania. Although Penn State is privately chartered by the Commonwealth, it carries out many of the functions of a public institution to enhance the general welfare of the citizens of Pennsylvania through research, scholarship and creative activity promoting human and economic development, global understanding, and progress in professional practice with applications in the natural and applied sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, and the professions.
Since its founding in 1976 by the late Vince Bruni, of Rochester, New York, membership in the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame has grown from six charter members to 444 regular and associate members from the United States and Canada, who have contributed to the activity across North America, England, the Netherlands, the Middle East, South Africa and Japan.
The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization honoring those individuals who have contributed significantly over many years to the development and continuing excellence of drum and bugle corps activity. The organization also seeks to preserve the history of the drum and bugle corps movement in North America by selecting a noteworthy junior and all age (senior) corps of the decade. The two corps chosen for the decade ending in 2009 are the Cavaliers, of Rosemont, Illinois and the Buccaneers, of Reading, Pennsylvania, both winners of five championships between 2000 and 2009.
For more information about the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, including biographies of members, nomination forms, an outline of selection procedures and information about the annual winter sunshine cruise in the Caribbean, open to all members of the public, visit the Web site at www.worlddrumcorpshof.org/
