Scholarship Program History

Union City, population approximately 11,000, is the county seat of Obion County, total population 32,000. We are an agriculture community mixed with manufacturing in rural northwest Tennessee. We have two school systems: Union City System which has about 85 graduating each year and Obion County School System with two high schools: Obion County Central High School with about 225 graduating each year and South Fulton High School graduating about 60 each year.

The Union City Rotary Club was chartered September 2, 1936. We have 145 members in our club. In 1982 when Gus White (one of our charter members and past district governor) died, a trust fund of $10,000 was set up for a scholarship in his memory. Hardy Graham started this trust with a $1,000 donation. Gus White's two grandsons are active in our club today. In 1983 Old & Third National Bank (now Commercial Bank & Trust Company) had a trust fund that had been left in a will for scholarships; the trust officer, John Pylant, asked if they could join with us to make the processing of applicants easier. In 1984 we jumped to $5,000 and exploded from that point as seen below:

The Union City Rotary Club awards total over $3,855,000 since 1982 and have helped over 2,290 students. John Pylant was chairman of the committee from 1982 to 1985. David Critchlow was chairman from 1985 to 1994. Clay Woods was chairman from 1994 to 2004 and Roger Williams has been chairman since 2005. Today our committee consists of Roger Williams, Newell Graham, Clint Joiner, Ron Green, Bob Regen, Steve Vaughn, Gary Houston, Barry Keathley, Dave Schlager and Al Creswell.

In May of 2002, our Club received a gift from an estate in the amount of $3,500,000. The income from this money will be awarded on a need basis to students who attended Union City High School and have completed one full year of college. As of 2008, we have awarded $656,000 from the Verhine Fund. Hardy Graham has been the "Cornerstone" of our program. He has led the way in donating monies throughout the years and setting an example for other donors. Mr. Hardy passed away in 2007, but he will always be remembered as a strong supporter of our program.

Our money is raised in several different ways:

• Funds come from annual donations from individuals and companies.
  
  
• Funds come from honoring or memorializing a person living or deceased. The money is invested and the interest generated funds the scholarship each year.
  
  
• Funds come into the program through codicils in wills.

We now have approximately $500,000 in a trust fund where the interest is awarded in scholarships. We have another $200,000 left in a will by Madge and Elmo Short, who were long time teachers at Hornbeak, and the income from this money will go to students majoring in education from one of our county schools.

The members of the committee have certain jobs that they perform each year. We do not change members on the committee very often; in fact it has been rumored that you have to die to get off the committee.

The accounting firm of Alexander, Thompson & Arnold (ATA) handles the collections and disbursements of all moneys. The checks are issued on a semester basis and are made jointly payable to the college and the student. We process over 350 applications annually, and it takes many hours of work by the committee to distribute these awards.

Our main theme for the program is to help needy students get a chance to go to college. We started with helping graduating high school seniors get into college who might not have had a chance or motivation to attend. We found a lot of parents did not provide any encouragement for the student to go to college and just wanted the students to get a job and get on their own. A number of the Rotarians get personally involved with the students and help them register for college and check on their progress during the year. A great number of our scholarship recipients are from divorced homes and a large number of the fathers are not present or involved with the students. We have had several who have not had parents at all. Mr. Hardy Graham started our "Sophomore Program" by creating a funded $35,000 scholarship and the interest generated creates a $2,500 award each year. We now send an application to each student who received an award the previous year and have a large number of upperclassmen awards. Several years ago we started trying to get a "Technology" program started for Vo-Tech students. We realized that we were doing some students an injustice by getting them into college; then when they graduated they had no skills and could not find a job. Our rural area needed carpenters, plumbers, electricians, electronic (computer trained auto mechanics, etc.), computer repairmen, masons, etc.; a student could make a great living with training from 9 months to 2 or 3 years. There was a recent article in the USA Today that stated the training people for a high-tech world is a problem. By 2012, 75% of all new jobs will require technical skills. It is impossible to put a price on what it will cost to address that training crisis nationwide, but it will be expensive if the auto industry is any indication. Interactive Solutions, a unit of Teltronics, claims that 30% of the automotive industry's warranty repair cost are the result of faulty diagnoses by technicians. That creates billions of dollars a year in waste associated with unnecessary labor and parts.

A very critical part of our program is the high school guidance counselor. They encourage the students to get the online scholarship applications completed in timely manner. We have a cut off of April 15 each year for the applications to get to our committee via our online application forms. We normally interview three days during the last of April from 7:00 AM to about 5:00 PM. Each member of the committee votes from 1 to 10 on each student and it is amazing that we almost always are within one point of each other. We then rank the students by school and the highest ranked students get the highest awards.

The Union City Rotary Club believes in education and takes a strong stance to enable those in need an opportunity to attend the college of their choice. Thank you for your interest in the Union City Rotary Club's Scholarship Program.

Click here to Apply for a Rotary Scholarship online.