Kentucky Coal Academy at Madisonville Community College Awards Scholarships

The Kentucky Coal Academy (KCA) at Madisonville Community College is pleased to announce and award 11 scholarships, valued at $1,000 each, to local high school and area technology center students who participated in, and graduated from, its Junior Coal Academy programs across the state during the 2016-17 academic year.

“It’s always exciting to give young students the opportunity to discover their potential, and our program and these scholarships do just that,” said Junior Coal Academy Coordinator Barney Judd. “Graduates learn a variety of skills through their coursework and they can use these scholarships to continue higher education at one of our colleges in not only mining technology, but also in a variety of other career and technical fields, like automotive technology, carpentry, diesel mechanics, electricity, HVAC, information technology, welding and more.”

Hopkins Central High School: Shawn Clark

Muhlenberg County Area Technology Center: Kailey Brandon, Courtney Brumfield, Ashley Dukes, Shelby Simpson, Logan Suttle, Hannah Thresher

Webster County Area Technology Center: Kyle Smith, David Stevens, James Townsend, Nicholas Vincent

Students who are members of the Junior Coal Academy, which is operated in partnership with four colleges that are part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (Big Sandy Community and Technical College, Hazard Community and Technical College, Madisonville Community College and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College), begin exploring pathways to higher education during their junior year, and have an expressed interest in mining technology, engineering or a closely related field.

In order to use these scholarships, which can only be applied to tuition, students need to enroll in any type of course or academic program at one of the four KCTCS colleges listed above within a year of graduation. If a student isn’t able to apply these funds to tuition within the first year of attendance, the funds can be applied to a future semester as long as the student remains enrolled and has the opportunity to use the funds.

The Junior Coal Academy awarded 112 scholarships in total amongst its four programs this year, and 105 in 2016 and 118 in 2015.S