The state's first lady Susan Hutchinson welcomed the gathering of the 18th Dennis Jungmeyer Scholarship winners and their families to the Governor's Mansion, the "people's house."
"Investing in children and their education goes beyond us," she said.
"We all grow up with the idea that no one younger than us gets sick. It's the older ones who get sick, and it's always a shock in our lives when sickness and pain and unfortunate circumstances ... happen to the youngest among us."
So it's a particularly blessed thing to see that misfortune turned around some way, and the Jungmeyer Scholarships, which to date have paid out well north of $800,000 to pediatric cancer survivors to go to college, do that.
Hutchinson joined Jungmeyer, Jim Mitchell and current scholar Haley Goodwin, a pre-med major at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, who took turns on the podium offering encouragement.
This year's class of 24 hail from almost all points in the state -- Rogers and Fort Smith, Subiaco and Pocahontas, Hot Springs and Searcy, even New Boston and Texarkana in Texas. The award is $2,500.
Jungmeyer is a director emeritus on the CARTI Foundation board of directors, a founder of its Golf Classic fundraiser, which helps fund the scholarships, and an erstwhile prostate cancer patient. Students need not be former patients at CARTI to apply for the scholarship but most are.
High Profile on 06/14/2015