Winners of Bartholomew County Lilly Scholarships announced

Heritage Fund: The Bartholomew County Community Foundation is announcing the two winners of this year’s Lilly Endowment Community Scholarships.

According to the group, Columbus East High School senior Keana Wooten and Columbus North High School senior Neal White have been chosen as the recipients of the scholarships for Bartholomew County.

Wooten is the daughter of Keesha Wooten. She has been a youth leader with activities at The Ridge, prom committee and Student Assembly and is a Patient Care Technician at Columbus Regional Hospital. She plans to pursue a nursing major.

White is the son of Stacia Neal. He has been active in cross country, track and field, Student Assembly, National Honor Society, Youth Leadership Bartholomew County and peer tutoring. He plans to pursue a computer science major.

The scholarships pay full tuition and required fees for four years of full-time undergraduate study that lead to a bachelors degree at any eligible Indiana public or private nonprofit college or university. Students also receive a stipend to help cover costs for books and equipment.

Heritage Fund received 37 applications for this year’s scholarships, from which 10 finalists were selected:

• Columbus East High School: Austin Menefee and Ella Powell.
• Columbus North High School: Benjamin Ferguson and Rebeca Cantu Garcia.
• CSA-New Tech: Santi De Luna, Sydney Morrow and Dane Tibbs.
• Hauser Jr-Sr High School: Samantha Holzer.

Lilly Endowment created the scholarship program in the 1997-98 school year and has since granted more than $490 million dollars to support more than 5,300 Indiana students.