Eight Area Residents Receive Shore Scholars Grants" 

SALISBURY, MD--With the help of area businesses and residents, eight students from Salisbury and Delmar are attending Salisbury State University as the first Shore Scholars.

Receiving grants of $1,000 each are Michael C. Bonsteel, Christina Noel Brannock, Amy Christine Chase, Meghan E. Emge, Angela Gail Mathwig, Rebecca Elizabeth McKay and Nathaniel Lee Whayland, all of Salisbury, and Freddie Russell Glasgow Jr. of Delmar.

The Shore Scholars Program awards scholarships to students from Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties. Awards are based on merit and need.

Donors to the Shore Scholars Fund are Wilgus Insurance Agency, Avery Hall Insurance Group, Tom and Beth Hershey, The Paper People, Johnson-McKee Animal Hospital, Gillis-Gilkerson Inc., Go Glass Corporation, Salisbury BPOE Elks Lodge #817, Gordon and Anne Reims, Thomas and Catherine Hill, and Jack and Mary Freistat.

The purpose of the fund is to keep good scholars on the Shore. "Often local students who qualify for admissions to SSU earn scholarships to universities off the Shore and then don’t return here after graduating," said Jack Freistat, director of special gifts at SSU.

If they do come to SSU, they often have to work. Working students may spend two to three years longer than their peers earning a degree, delaying advancement in the job market.

Among local students enrolled at Salisbury State this fall, more than half have a B+ average, but only 20 percent are getting scholarship support.

The Shore Scholars Fund was developed to help balance this inequity. For more information on the fund contact Freistat at 410-546-6939.