College scholarships totaling $72,000were awarded recently to six seniors at Alleghany High School by the Augusta Schultz Grubbs Charitable Trust Scholarship Committee.
The announcement was made by Clifton Forge attorney R. Meade Snyder, Trustee of the Grubbs Trust. In the twenty-six years grants have been made, the Trust has awarded $1,648,000 in scholarships to Alleghany High School seniors.
The 2024 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: Kole Kellan Caldwell ( Virginia Tech), Victoria Marie Critzer (Christopher Newport University),Travis Wayne Hicks, II(Christopher Newport University), Abigale Grace Jones (Mary Baldwin University), Emily Nicole Lanahan (Coastal Carolina University) and Temrak Orchid Tucker (University of Virginia).
The scholarships are awarded on the basis of merit in academic achievement, citizenship, leadership, extra curricular activities and community involvement. Recipients must have a grade point average in the top ten percent of their graduating class at Alleghany High School. 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 Superintendent of the Eastern Division of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.
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 $1.1 million. At the time of her death, Mrs. Grubbs also left $1.1 million to Virginia United Methodist Family Services for the care of children who are assisted by it and $1.1 million to Virginia United Methodist Homes for financial assistance to residents in its retirement homes.