Borger High School senior, Hope Sharp recently received the prestigious Terry Foundation Scholarship which covers all college expenses after her other scholarships are applied.
Hope has also received the Amarillo Area Foundation Scholarship for $20,000 and the Texas Tech Presidential Scholarship for $6,500 per year. Hope will attend Texas Tech University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and will then pursue her master’s degree in a related field.
Hope is the daughter of Les and Melanie Sharp and a member of Faith Covenant Church where she leads a youth group and plays piano and sings on Wednesdays and Sundays.
During her four years at BHS, she has played soccer, volleyball, basketball and sang in the choir where she has made it to state two years in a row. Her junior year she went to state in solo and this year she made it to state in both solo and ensemble. All this and she has worked part-time at Neuman and Bailey as a barista.
Hope has traveled the last four years on mission trips to Houston and volunteered for United Way’s Day of Caring. She mentored a student at Crockett Elementary and participated in the BHS Junior Diabetes Research Foundation Walk-a-Thon.
Hope was voted Most Likely to Succeed by her senior class. She is the Borger High School Valedictorian for 2019 ranking 1 out of 190 students with a 106.0750 GPA and a 4.0. She has taken 23 advanced classes at BHS and will take 36 college hours to Texas Tech. She received masters level performance on all 5 STAAR EOCs and will graduate distinguished with an endorsement in Arts and Humanities.
Born of a desire of Howard and Nancy Terry to help young people to help themselves, the Terry Foundation’s goal is to improve and develop the State of Texas by assisting Texas students to attend the state’s finest public universities. The Foundation hopes that these students will have a significant impact on the future leadership of the state and nation. To achieve this goal, the Foundation awards scholarships to students who meet the high standards set by the founders Howard and Nancy Terry.
A longtime resident of Houston, Howard Terry had been active for many years in banking, construction, real estate and oil and gas. With profound business success over the decades and their family’s needs met, the Terry’s developed a growing desire to give back to the community and specifically to help young people to reach their goals in higher education.
In 2011, the first year as a Terry Foundation school, Texas Tech welcomed 18 Terry Scholars. Those students started the Terry Scholar student organization at Texas tech, including Leadership Speaker Series. The next year they added 20 to the number. To date there are over 150 current Terry Scholars at Texas Tech University.
When students apply to the university, their applications are processed through a matrix to look for the three pillars of a Terry Scholar: high leadership, high scholarship, and high financial need. There is a committee at Texas Tech, led by the Terry Coordinator, who reviews the applications and submit a select few to the foundation for an in-person interview. This year there were over 500 applications for 20 interview spots and only 14 Terry Scholarships awarded to incoming freshman at Texas Tech.
The Scholarship is a “last dollar” scholarship so that each scholar is awarded the cost of attendance. In addition, the foundation has graciously added an additional semester of funding to be used towards study abroad programs. For Terry Scholars attending Texas Tech, this means that their scholarship award will be worth well over $120,000 over the course of 4 years.
The Terry Foundation Scholarship is more that a scholarship; it’s a program. The program is designed to encourage student’s success and retention. With a dedicated program coordinator and a host of resources at the disposal of the scholars, success is highly anticipated.
Hope receiving scholarship from Carson Curry, Hope with her parents and Mr. Curry
a former Terry Foundation recipient.