Pig Out to benefit scholarship endowment

By Elizabeth Sharp

LITTLE ROCK — This year, Great Arkansas Pig Out won't just be a way for the community to have fun. It'll be a way to benefit Morrilton, too.

Hereafter, Great Arkansas Pig Out proceeds will go toward Conway County School Counts! Initiative, which gives graduating seniors scholarships to University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton.

Patty Shipp, member of the Conway County School Counts! Initiative steering committee, said the group formed in February 2007. A few years before, Morrilton was selected as one of three potential locations for a large food-processing plant to be built. But ultimately, a community in Kentucky got the new plant.

"We reached out to that community to see what put them over the top," Shipp said.

When Morrilton took a closer look at the town, Shipp said that a program called School Counts! stood out. The program - originally formed in New Jersey - aims "to develop a better trained and more attractive work force to industries that might be looking to expand," Shipp explained.

By encouraging residents to pursue some kind of post-high school education - whether it's a four-year college, community college or trade school - through Conway County School Counts!, Shipp said Morrilton hopes to foster a more educated community and thereby become more attractive to industries.

Shipp said that ConwayCounty School Counts! hopes to achieve this goal by providing $1,000 scholarships for University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton to graduating seniors without any other financial aid. The first scholarships be awarded to 2010 graduates.

The endowment fund has already raised $400,000, but Shipp said that Conway County School Counts! hopes to reach its $1 million goal through Great Arkansas Pig Out this year and in years to come - and get across the importance of higher education to the community.

"Often times, it's not the students we're trying to reach, it's the parents," she said. "Research shows that as children age, parents become disengaged from their children's education.That's why we feel like building awareness will be more beneficial than the monies raised."

Pig Out is scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 149 on 06/21/2009