UA scholarship set in memory of teen who died from fall while hiking

FAYETTEVILLE -- A University of Arkansas at Fayetteville scholarship has been established with more than $60,000 in donations from family and friends of a UA student who died earlier this year from a fall while hiking.

Two incoming freshmen each year will receive Jessamy Eve Samuels Memorial Scholarship awards of $5,000 per year for up to four years. Students must be graduates from Arkansas high schools and meet academic requirements, as well as submit an essay, to be considered for the awards.

Samuels, a 2015 graduate of Rogers High School, was born in London and became a U.S. citizen in 2015. In high school, she was president of a chapter of the Young Democrats. She continued her involvement in political organizing at UA, helping create the Young Democrats of Arkansas Environmental Task Force to engage youth in environmental politics.

She was posthumously awarded the Jeffrey Ledbetter Memorial Award for Outstanding Young Democrat, a statewide honor.

Samuels died in May after a fall from a bluff near Hawksbill Crag in Newton County. She was 19.

"In establishing this scholarship, we are looking for a way to celebrate Jessamy's love of learning by giving future students this gift," Mark Samuels, Jessamy's father, said in a statement released by UA. "She would have been grateful for everyone's incredible generosity."

Metro on 11/11/2016

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