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Cooperative Awards Scholarships

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 25, 2008

DADE CITY - At 13, James Walmer started his own computer sales, service and repair business.

At 18, his intellectual curiosity drives him to scrutinize every line of his family's electric bill, study the possibilities of green energy and envision a law career.

Unfortunately, Walmer's family can't afford to send him to college.

Thanks in part to the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, whose bill Walmer scours regularly, the Pasco High School senior will attend Eckerd College in St. Petersburg this August.

Not only will he be the first in his family to attend college, he will be the first to graduate from high school.

"My dad got to ninth grade and said, 'That's it,'" Walmer said. "He worked in construction, and every day he would come home and tell me, 'You don't want to be like this.'

"He'd say that all the time, like a broken record."

The message got through.

This year, Walmer is one of 34 Pasco students to benefit from the cooperative's $6,000 scholarship program. The company gives money each year to 75 students from its five-county service area, which also includes Citrus, Hernando, Polk and Sumter counties.

About 300 students applied for the scholarship this year, said David Lambert, the cooperative's manager of member relations.

"We have a vested interest in these folks," he said. "Better education means better communities. It's about everybody working together."

Since the program's 1997 inception, the cooperative has awarded 929 scholarships with a "potential" value of $3.9 million. Through the scholarship, students receive $750 every semester for four years.

"We monitor them from start to finish," Lambert said. "They have to maintain a 2.0 grade point average" to keep the scholarship.

Billy Brown, the cooperative's executive vice president and general manager, said he was inspired to start the program because he realized many students in the cooperative's service area couldn't afford college.

The Dade City native, who worked his way to the top during 52 years at the cooperative, never attended college.

The funding comes from unclaimed capital credits, which are like dividends the nonprofit utility pays to its members once a year.

"I just thought it would be a good thing to do for our members," he said. "That money used to go back to the state. With the state budget, that amount of money - about $450,000 a year - would just go through the cracks."

The cooperative relies on input from school officials to determine which students would benefit most.

"Our population probably has the most need of any school in the county," said Lucy Rom, a guidance counselor at Pasco High School in Dade City. The cooperative "really gives back to our community and has helped our community be what it is. It makes a big difference."

Walmer's classmate Nicole Boyd, 17, seemed nervous about attending the University of South Florida. Like Walmer, she will be the first in family to go to college.

But the Pasco High senior is no stranger to hard work or academic achievement. She has held two jobs for most of the past year while maintaining a healthy GPA and participating in extracurricular activities such as National Honor Society, student council, science club and math team.

"I don't want to be at the bottom of the totem pole. I want to be at the top," Boyd said. "It's like, duh, go to college. I was really excited about the scholarship. I hadn't received any other scholarships. It's a load off."

She said she is interested in math and public speaking.

"I don't really know how the two will cross yet, though," she said. "My mom says I'd make a good broadcaster."

Walmer, a member of the school's Envirothon team and teen court, as well as the National Honor Society and Model United Nations club, seems as grateful for the scholarship as he is enthusiastic about learning.

"I'm going to do a double major, double minor: business administration-economics and philosophy-law and justice," he said.

"Then to law school immediately."

Local Scholarship Winners

These students earned scholarships through a program offered by Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative:

Bishop McLaughlin

Ashlea Zantene

Gulf High School

Shallyn Bensonhuber

Hudson High

Megan Bradley, Christina Huertas-Colvin, Katie Lunday and Patricia Russo

Land O' Lakes High

Monique Clayton, Shawn Kirby, Sean Peters and Laura Belluccia

Pasco High

Nicole Boyd, Anthony Brown, Isaias Carrillo, Deanna Carrillo, James Walmer and Ryan Lowery

Ridgewood High

Kerri Gjertsen, Christine Holcomb, Breanne Monaco and Nicolette Osher

River Ridge High

Rachel Clauson, Jamie Glowatsky, Kyle Messier, Amanda Morales, Michael Ramos, Tyler Reasoner and Melanie Vander Kooy

Wesley Chapel High

Alicia Brady, Christina Campbell, Jonecia Mahan, Sean Youdelman and Shelby DeLoach

Zephyrhills High

Lauren Dotsun and Heather Holloway

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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