A panel of 3 independent judges recently awarded $20,000 in scholarships as part of Wood County Electric Cooperative’s (WCEC) “Power My World” essay contest. 10 local students residing within WCEC’s 9 county service area will each receive a $2,000 scholarship towards continuing education. The program is funded entirely by unclaimed capital credit payments returned to WCEC by the state of Texas.
The judges were comprised of WCEC members Darla Moss, Patricia Durst, and Sam Mullen. They used various criteria to select the ten from 73 qualified applicants. Based on their exceptional essays and application submissions, the 2013 scholarship recipients are:
- Spencer Capps – Quitman
- Hunter Fair – Hawkins
- Jonathan Haskett – Quitman
- Olivia Heard – Mineola
- Alston Johnson – Quitman
- Katherine Kerwin – Harmony
- Mary McCreight Miller – Grove
- Hannah Pinnell – Winnsboro
- Destyn Taylor – Grand Saline
- Madelyn Wood – Mineola
In addition to the above scholarships, one $5,000 scholarship was awarded to James McDonald from Ben Wheeler, TX, a current college electrical engineering who is studying at Texas A&M.
About the process, WCEC CEO/General Manager Debbie Robinson said, “We had an outstanding group of applicants and a record number of submissions for the judges to choose from this year. We thank all that applied, as well as the judges, who truly had a tough task to pick from such remarkable candidates. I look forward to seeing this outstanding group of scholarship recipients reach their educational goals with this scholarship help.”
Wood County Electric Cooperative, Inc. is a not-for-profit electric cooperative with the mission of providing member-customers reliable electric service at a reasonable rate. WCEC serves over 33,000 meters in parts of nine counties throughout northeast Texas, including Camp, Franklin, Hopkins, Rains, Smith, Titus, Upshur, Van Zandt, and Wood.