Four A-B Tech students were honored with scholarships at the NCCIA conference held on March 6-8 at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. Eight scholarships are given statewide for students majoring in an IT field.
Ginny Overbay is the recipient of the Annelle Pegg Memorial Scholarship sponsored by the NCCIA, for a total of $750.
As a single parent, coming back to school for the Digital Media Technology program was not an easy decision for Ginny It required sacrifice and dedication.
Last spring, Ginny and other students volunteered to create a video to promote women in technical careers for an NSF grant-funded program. The project required them to record the video a number of times, including interviews with students and the coordinator. It gave them a chance to engage with other women in the college and ask about career choices. Watch Picture Yourself In A Technology Career. Ginny has commented on how much she learned from the experience, and how much she believed in encouraging women in technical fields.
Zach Holliday has been selected as the recipient of a $500 scholarship sponsored by Pearson Higher Ed.
Zach left his family home in Alabama to come live in Asheville for the primary reason of coming to A-B Tech for the Digital Media Technology program. He stated that he couldn't find any other program that allowed him to express his creativity in so many ways. Zach is an amazing designer, researcher, communicator, and storyteller. With all these skills, Zach’s hardest decision was what to focus on.
Katherine (Katie) Winwiddie is the recipient of the $600 Bruce Waugh Memorial Scholarship
Returning to college has been a financial hardship but Katie truly believes that, in the long term, it will have its rewards. Katie is a work-study student on campus. And, she works for a farmer on nights and weekends. Her instructor for her advanced digital media class told me “Katie is smart; she has excellent design skills, but even more important she is rigorous in her research and preparation for class. I know she will be a success in the graphics field.”
Kimberly Ellis is the recipient of the $1000 McGraw-Hill Education Scholarship.
Kim had worked in a low paying job for many years but left her job to care for her mother who had a stroke. Unfortunately, her mother passed away during the fall semester. But Kim had used her time as a caretaker to consider what she wanted to do with her life. She knew she wanted to work with computers and when she began exploring her options, she knew she had found her place with Networking and Security.
From Left to right – Ginny Overbay, Zach Holliday, Katie Dinwiddie and Kim Ellis.