ROCKINGHAM — About 25 students from Richmond County and about another 25 from the surrounding area will receive scholarships for the coming school year thanks to the 29th Masonic District Most Worshipful Grand Lodge North Carolina.
The lodge has provided scholarships for about 30 years but has upped their average recipients to 25 students per year over the last 15 years, according to Nic Nicholson, district deputy grand master. Nicholson said the “catalyst” of this increase was his predecessor, James Howard Alford, who passed last year.
“He was the fire and the brimstone, whatever you want to call it, it all revolved around him pushing (to help more students),” Nicholson said. “We’re going to another level this year.”
The scholarship program, recently renamed the 29th Masonic District James Howard Alford Memorial Scholarship in Alford’s honor, awards $500 for each student based on need, Nicholson said. He add that no one is turned away if they’re not significantly impoverished but that students from low-income families are given preference. Recipients must maintain a GPA of at least 2.8 and be a graduating senior or a college student.
The total scholarship funds being awarded this year is between $28,000 and $30,000, according to Nicholson. The lodge will recognize the recipients at 7 p.m. on April 19 at the Geneva Richardson Center in Fairmont, North Carolina.
“We’re a benevolent organization and we know that we can’t help everybody … but we know we have the ability to provide enough funding to make a difference,” Nicholson said speaking from experience of having sent his own children to college. “Every dollar we can provide to send kids to school does make a difference and we recognize that — it costs money to send kids to college.”
One of the scholarship recipients is Ariel Ingram, 21, who first applied for the scholarship when she graduated high school in 2016 and has reapplied ever year. Ingram is a junior at Livingstone College in Salisbury and said she hopes to study to become a veterinarian at the Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine in Alabama.
“College is hard and I have a full-time job so to get financial support that I don’t have to worry about is kind of mind-easing,” Ingram said. “(The Masons) are very involved in they’re community … and they obviously stand on their word.”