Three EHS, two HCHS students named as Governors Scholars

Staff writer/photographer

Five students in Henry County have been selected to participate in the 2009 Governors Scholars Program.

Three Eminence High School juniors and two from Henry County High School (plus an alternate) recently were chosen for the program.

EHS students Keisha Jamison and Rachel Sims look forward to participating in the project following a difficult application process.

Sims submitted an essay about her experiences at Transylvania College. She attended a seminar awarded through an Adventures in Education Hugh O’Brien scholarship.

“We got the whole college experience,” she said. “I think Hugh O’Brien was maybe an actor?”

Jamison said she submitted two very different types of essays.

“I wrote one about my hobby, scrapbooking,” she said, “and the other about my dad being sick.”

Jamison’s father suffers from complications of Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.

Ballard Metcalfe is the third Governors Scholar representing Eminence High School.

Metcalfe spent his junior year at the Gatton Academy on the campus of Western Kentucky University.

Henry County High School students Virginia Brammell and Billy Kelley also were selected for the program. Should one of them not be able to attend, Jonathan Day was selected as an alternate.

Like her EHS counterparts, Brammell can’t wait for her Governors Scholars experience this summer at Centre College.

“It’ll be a great opportunity for more education over the summer,” she said, “and a neat way to meet people.”

Brammell’s essays she submitted show a lot about who she is, the junior said.

“One was about my love for animals, and how I rescued a horse,” she said. Brammell said the second essay was highly personal. “I wrote about my brother who is mentally challenged,” she said.

Brammell hopes to attend the University of Kentucky and plans to take courses at Centre in business and psychology.

Kelley said he doesn’t know yet which college he will be assigned to through the Governors Scholars program.

“I just think it’ll be great to get away from the same old stuff and meet new people,” he said.

Kelley is interested in courses involving historical analysis and philosophy.

“I hope this will help with scholarships,” he said. “I am extremely excited.”

The five will join students from all over Kentucky to participate in a five-week immersion into college study and campus life.

They will experience a liberal arts program and residential life at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Centre College in Danville or Morehead State University in Morehead.

Scholars commit to an uninterrupted stay, daily classes and participation in the college community.  

Jamison and Sims said they won’t know which university they will be assigned to until the end of May.

“I’m hoping for Morehead or Bellarmine,” Sims said, “just because they offer earlier dates and I’d like to have some summer left.”

Participants have a choice of 25 classes in the categories of sciences, mathematics, humanities and the arts.

Jamison requested classes in healthcare and historical analysis. “I’d like a career in healthcare,” she said, “but, I’m not sure what branch yet.”

Sims said her choices were film study, journalism and psychology. “I’m leaning more toward psychology than journalism,” she said, noting there’s no money to be made in journalism.

Coursework is not graded nor is credit earned.

According to the Web site, noted scientists, writers, thinkers and business, government and educational leaders visit, speak, and serve as role models. Students participate in productions, publications, experiments and field trips as well.

Jamison said she hopes the Governors Scholars Program will help her obtain a four-year scholarship, preferably for Eastern Kentucky University.

“I knew about it from my sister, Whitney, who got a full ride,” she said.

Sims hopes to get her tuition to University of Kentucky paid in full.

“It’s a really great chance to get college paid for,” Sims said. “My goal is to have no debt after college.”

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