For many Richmond County young people, Cole Foundation Scholarships have meant obtaining college degrees with less stress about obtaining the finances to do so.

“The Cole Foundation Scholarships over the past 19 award cycles has assisted some 467 students with close to $2 million in scholarships, said Charles B. Deane Jr., chairman of the scholarship committee.

Two such recipients are now newly involved in their chosen careers.

Dr. John David Bream of Rockingham is now engaged in his medical residency at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville.

Joey Bennett last year was named director of the Cole Auditorium. He obtained a master’s degree in administration with a Cole Scholarship while being assistant director there.

In 1990, the Cole Foundation Scholarship program presented 21 scholarships for a total of $14,600.

Scholarships increase

In 2009, 80 new and renewed scholarships totaled $329,250 with 26 of the scholarships being new.

“The program includes graduate as well as undergraduate study,” Deane said, “and scholarships are renewable.” This year no one applied for a graduate scholarship.

“While Cole scholarships are well-known at Richmond Senior High School for undergraduates, we want people to know they are available also for graduate studies for former Cole Scholarship recipients,” he said.

Recipients are eligible to renew scholarships for four years at $5,000 a year for a total of a $20,000.

For Bream and Bennett and others, their scholarships were extended to graduate studies.

Bream said the scholarship has been invaluable.

“Even with the Cole Scholarship, I graduated from medical school with $83,000 in debt. Luckily, ECU has the cheapest tuition of any medical school in the United States, so that number is low in comparison to every other stateside medical school. Most of my classmates graduated with well over $100,000 in debt, so having the Cole Scholarship was of tremendous benefit.”

No debt

The Cole Scholarship to Bennett meant he could complete his master’s degree with no outstanding student loans to repay.

“The scholarship allowed me to attend Richmond Community College without having to find employment outside the family business so I could concentrate completely on my studies, be involved in student organizations and volunteer in the community,” Bennett said.

In addition to showing scholastic ability, Bennett said, “It is also important to have participated in community activities and volunteer with non-profits. The Cole Foundation has a community-based scholarship committee which is looking for students who have given back to the community.”

Bream also received a $5,000-a-year scholarship from Sandhills Regional Medical Center while in medical school.

“Andy Davis is such a great guy,” he said. “I worked in the admissions department at SRMC for three years, and Andy became CEO as I was about to leave because medical school was starting. “

When someone told Davis that Bream was leaving for school, Davis said he would like to help him.

“The next thing I know, he told me I would be getting a $5,000 scholarship through SRMC,” Bream said. “SRMC has always been beyond generous to me.”

The two scholarships have assisted him “to make my lifelong dreams a reality.”

Bream

Bream graduated from Richmond Senior High School in 2001 where he had been senior class president. He received a four-year Cole Scholarship and attended East Carolina University graduating summa cum laude with university honors with a bachelor of science degree in biological sciences and a bachelor of arts in history.

Cole recipients are expected to maintain a certain grade point average each year for renewal. Class rank is considered with graduate studies. Bream said maintaining certain GPA requirements as an undergraduate were important to be considered for medical school.

The Cole Scholarship Committee awarded its first graduate scholarships in 2006 when Bream was in the second year of medical school, and he was a recipient for the next three years.

Bream learned of a graduate scholarship from a former RSHS graduate at the Broady School of Medicine he was attending. “Charles Deane has been highly involved in my scholarship and has been highly influential in seeing that the needs of Richmond County are met through the Cole Foundation in every way possible,” he said.

Dr. Vetter

For Bream is was the influence — when he was a child — of Dr. Stanley Vetter which encouraged him to become a physician along with family support.

“He is an amazing physician and I have been able to tell him how he had influenced me, and that I had been accepted to medical school. That was really neat.”

Emergency medicine is Bream’s interest. At Pitt County Memorial Hospital, where he will be doing his residency, there is a 55-bed emergency department with three additional trauma bays. The ED sees approximately 100,000 patients a year.

PCMH was his first choice in a competitive selection process that took him to 11 hospitals from Greenville to Las Vegas, Nev.

“I chose to stay at PCMH because of the wide variety of patients seen there,” Bream said. “Eastern North Carolina is one the poorest and most medically-neglected areas in the country. It is the second most unhealthy area in the United States and a referral center for 29 counties basically east of I-95.”

It is also the second-largest hospital in the state with some 900 beds, and he said the new cardiac hospital has the largest operating room in the entire United States.

Bream plans to remain in North Carolina after his residency, hopefully in an urban emergency department. “I would certainly love to moonlight in Hamlet during my residency,” he said.

Bennett

During his senior year at RSHS in 1999, Bennett applied for and received a Cole Scholarship to Richmond Community College. After receiving his associate degree there, he applied for and received a Cole Scholarship to complete undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

While at RCC, he also received a scholarship one year from Pee Dee Electric Membership Corporation.

During his years at Pembroke, Bennett worked during the day and went to school at night while he worked on a degree in business management. Later he received a master’s in business administration with a concentration in management in 2007.

He said he was led to such studies because he enjoyed math and business classes at RSHS.

While he is now eligible to teach some classes in colleges, Bennett said he might consider seeking additional master’s-level classes to be able to teach business classes such as economics and accounting.

Bennett is also well-known for his involvement with Richmond Community Theater for the past 14 years during which time he volunteered his time on over 40 productions. He is on the theater’s board of directors.

His experience there has been helpful in guiding him to work at the Cole Auditorium where he had been assistant director since 2001 and was named director in October 2008.

Cole Foundation

The Cole Foundation Scholarship program was established in 1989 to encourage Richmond County High School graduates to pursue post-secondary education.

In 1999, the Sally Cole Visual Arts Scholarship was established to honor Sally Cole’s commitment and contributions to the arts. Students are selected based on their artistic ability and promise. Her art work is on display in the lobby of the Cole Auditorium.

Members of the Cole Scholarship Committee besides Deane include Neal Cadieu, Laura Stevenson-Daskal and Ken Goodman, all of Rockingham; Patsy Anderson and Jan Carriker, both of Hamlet; and Lynn McCaskill of Ellerbe.

The support staff includes Jewell Price, career counselor at RSHS; and Tiffany Capers, Foundation for the Carolinas, which manages the Cole Foundation, of Charlotte.

This year’s Sally Cole Visual Arts Scholarship recipients are Shellie Brigman, Matthew Delvalle and Brandon Williams.

Cole Scholarship recipients are Karen Anderson, Mersedes Brown, Melanie Cockerton, Elizabeth Craven, Kristin Culbreth, James Davenport, Michael Deese, Brittaney Gathings, Andrea Green, Elton Hair, Billy Ray Hatcher Jr., Lyndsey Herman, Charles Jackson, Staci Kelly, Tashzna McDonald, Ashley Miller, Michael Nichols, Leah Perry, Arlena Ratliff, Aaron Snead, Laura Stephenson, Brittany Tedder and Amanda Terry.

n Contact reporter Tom MacCallum at 997-3111, ext. 15; e-mail tmaccallum@yourdailyjournal.com.