EDITORIAL: A heartwarming display of a community’s commitment to its youth

Published 4:45 am Monday, June 3, 2024

The list of scholarships awarded to Baker High School graduates is longer than might be expected in a town with 10,000 residents and a school with a bit fewer than 500 students.

The amounts are impressive, too.

Each award is an investment in a young person’s future.

Each has the potential to help propel a 2024 graduate to a life that’s more fulfilling, both personally and professionally, than it might have been had the student lacked access to higher education.

The total — more than $900,000 as of this writing — is prodigious.

But a smaller figure is in its own way the more gratifying.

Of the total, about $330,000 came from local scholarships.

This is a meaningful measure of the community’s commitment to its youth.

The largest share, about $134,200 distributed to 46 graduates, comes from one source — the Leo Adler Foundation.

Adler’s generosity, now almost 31 years after his death in November 1993, continues to enrich the town he loved so dearly.

The roster of local scholarships is broad.

A variety of local clubs, service organizations and businesses offer annual awards.

Some, like Adler’s, continue the legacy of individuals.

Allan H. McCullough.

Harold Alfred Wyatt.

Jodie Marie Averett.

J. Mayce Collard.

Rosemary Poole Rouse.

John Leonard.

There are more.

The cost of college, as anyone knows who has prepared to pay tuition and other expenses, rises more years than it does not.

Baker students have opportunities that surpass what’s available to some of their fellow graduates, including in communities both larger and more prosperous.

Reading the list of recipients requires more than a glance.

But it is a rewarding, and heartwarming, experience.