The Shadow
College scholarships totaling $48,000 have been awarded to four seniors at Alleghany High School by the Augusta Schultz Grubbs Charitable Trust Scholarship Committee.
The announcement was made recently by Clifton Forge attorneys James D. Snyder and R. Meade Snyder, trustees of the Grubbs Trust.
In the 22 years grants have been made, the trust has awarded more than $1,348,000 in scholarships to AHS seniors.
The 2020 scholarships are for $3,000 per academic year for four years, totaling $12,000 for each student.
This year’s recipients, and the schools they will attend this fall, are Derek Joshua Benoit (West Virginia University), Zachary Nicholas Crizer (Virginia Tech), Julieanna Marie Lara-Vasquez (Virginia Tech), and John Blair Mitchell III (University of Virginia).
The scholarships are awarded on the basis of merit in academic achievement, citizenship, leadership, extracurricular activities and community involvement. Recipients must have a grade point average in the top 10 percent of their graduating class.
Other requirements, stipulated by Mrs. Grubbs when she established the trust, are that the recipients must major in mathematics, biology, engineering, a physical science, computer science, any technical science developed since 1992, English or pre-medical school studies for students who intend to become physicians.
Mrs. Grubbs, who died at age 93 in 1997, came to Clifton Forge in 1923 as a young teacher. She taught elementary grades at Moody School (later Clifton Forge Elementary West) for 30 years.
She retired in 1953 and married Lee A. Grubbs, retired General Superinten-dent of the Eastern Division of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.
Mrs. Grubbs continued to live in Clifton Forge after her husband died in 1971. She maintained a keen interest in the field of education and kept up with current developments.
Mrs. Grubbs’ concern for education led her to create the charitable trust to motivate and benefit top students, resulting in her bequest to the trust of $l.1 million.
At the time of her death, Mrs. Grubbs also left $l.l million to Virginia United Methodist Family Services for the care of children who are assisted by it and $l.1 million to Virginia United Methodist Homes for financial assistance to residents in its retirement homes.
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, a group photo of the recipients was not possible this year.
