2013 HFA Scholarship Winners
W. R. "Bill" Higon, HFA Scholarship Committee Chair, is pleased to
announce that Amber Smith, of Leitchfield, Kentucky, daugther of Douglas
and Mary Smith, and Leah Wood, of Andrews, North Carolina, daughter of
Keith and Teresa Wood, have been awarded scholarships to attend college
this fall. Amber is continuing her studies toward a nursing degree at
Elizabethtown Community/Technical College in Elizabethtown, Kentucky;
and Leah will enter Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia, as a
freshman majoring in secondary English (grades 6-12) and theater
performance. Both young women had excellent grades and recommendations.
Amber Smith of Leitchfield, Kentucky
Sponsored by her grandfather, HFA Historian Eugene Smith, Amber has
already completed a year in college and was on the Dean's List her first
semester at Eastern Kentucky University. She transferred to
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College this spring, where she has
also done very well and was invovled in many extracurricular
activities, such as Campus Crusades, weekly Bible and book discussion
groups, Catholic Campus Ministries, and American Red Cross blood drives.
She plans to transfer to Western Kentucky University this fall to
continue er work toward a bachelor's degree in nursing.
Amber also received a Higdon scholarship award last year and has
excelled in her college studies. About her future goals, she writes,
"After working as a RN for a few years (maybe even a travel nurse), I
would then like to continue my education even further and obtain my
doctorate in nursing through WKU and become a nurse practitioner."
Amber's older brother, Wesley Adam Smith, received HFA scholarship
awards in 2009 and 2010 and he graduated this spring from Western
Kentucky University with a major in exercise science. He plans to enter
graduate school this fall, with the goal of becoming a phyiscal
therapist. Amber's oldest brother, Jared D. Smith, is also a graduate of
WKU in the field of civil engineering and is now working as an engineer
in training for the Kentucky Department of Transportation.
The other HFA scholarship awardee, Leah Wood, was sponsored by her
grandmother, HFA member Eva Higdon Wood, and was described by one of
those who recommended her as "a resourceful, innovative young woman,"
who excels in language arts, music, and drama. Leah participated in the
Andrews Community Youth Players, the Appalachian Players, and her high
school show choir. An outstanding student, she was described by a
teacher as "one of the most articulate students I have ever had the
pleasure of teaching."
Leah descibed her senior project, which involved her turning a room in
the Valleytown Cultural Arts Center, where she worked, into a backstage
green room. "I scraped windows, repainted, built both a countertop and
bookshelves, and refurnished the whole room." Most recently, she played
the role of Snow White in the Appalachian Players production of Ever
After.
Leah's two first cousins, Matthew and Meredith Wood, were also
recipients of HFA scholarship awards. Matthew graduated from Western
Carolina University, in Cullowhee, and Meredith graduated from North
Carolina State University, in Raleigh.
Leah is from a long line of North Carolina Higdons who trace their
ancestry to Leonard and Mary Higdon, who were in Anson County, NC in the
1750s; and Amber is from a long line of Kentucky Higdons, descendants
of Ignatius and Mildred Dyson Higdon (born in Maryland in the late
1700s).
Assisting HFA Scholarship Chair Bill Higdon, of Moon, Virginia were
committee members Charles P. Higdon, of Clinton, Tennessee, and Sally H.
Swain, of Lebanon, Tennessee.
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