KIMBALL, Tenn. - It's hard to believe that graduating high school seniors wouldn't be interested in available scholarship money, but that's exactly what city leaders in Kimball say has happened with the annual $4,000 Jere Davis Memorial Scholarship in recent years.
The scholarship was named as a posthumous honor for Kimball's former mayor.
"We started this several years ago, and it went well for a while," Mayor Rex Pesnell said. "We just haven't had good results the last few years. People just don't seem to apply for it anymore. This has been since the Tennessee Promise was initiated to give all high school seniors access to free community college and technical education."
Mayor Rex PesnellCity officials had been working on ways to drum up interest in the scholarship until Marion County Mayor David Jackson recently suggested "doing it a different way" by awarding the scholarship to a student who is interested in attending the new Polytech Academy at Chattanooga State Community College's satellite campus in Kimball.
The academy, which is in its first year, is a blend of high school, dual credit and dual enrollment courses for high school juniors and seniors to complete requirements for a high school diploma, while also earning a certificate from Chattanooga State in engineering systems management.
With the certification, students could go to work immediately out of high school, complete an associate's degree with one more year at Chattanooga State or transfer those credits to UTC to continue pursuing a four-year degree.
Officials said the program is not funded by state or federal grants, so the only way students can pay the tuition is to get support locally or for parents to pay for it.
Thirteen of the county's juniors entered the program this year, and Pesnell said the Marion County Partnership for Economic Development, a nonprofit corporation formed in 1986 to address the need to advance economic, industrial, business and civic welfare in Marion, gave six of those scholarships to help with the tuition.
Under the revised plan for the Davis Scholarship, Kimball would use the applications for Polytech Academy from those additional students who do not receive financial assistance from the Partnership to award the Davis Scholarship as long as certain criteria to maintain eligibility are met.
"We've been doing [the scholarship] through the high schools, and we haven't been getting very good response from it," Pesnell said. "This way we can keep the Jere Davis Memorial Scholarship alive, and it's still going for school here in Kimball. Jere Davis, I think, would be in full support."
Alderman Mark Payne agreed and said the scholarship's namesake, Davis, would be "fighting to see this go through" if he were still alive.
The board voted unanimously to move the scholarship to assist students in the academy.
"We can try it that way for this year, and see how it goes," Pesnell said. "We can tweak it a little bit, and improve on it maybe."
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.