HAWTHORNE ‒ Melody Watson thought she was simply staying behind while her classmates went on a field trip. Instead, the 15-year-old sophomore at Hawthorne Middle/High School was surprised with a $40,000 scholarship during a school-wide assembly.

According to Alachua County Public Schools, Watson is one of only two students in the country selected this month to receive the BigFuture scholarship from the College Board, a national organization known for its college readiness programs and standardized testing. The scholarship is awarded to high school students in grades 10 through 12 who demonstrate a commitment to preparing for college and career success.

Stephanie Tate of the College Board delivered the news in front of a cheering crowd in the school auditorium. Several members of Watson’s family were also present for the surprise, though they had not been told why they were invited to the event.

“I won’t have to stress about where the money’s coming from and how I’m going to pay back any loans,” Watson said. “I can just attend college and pursue my dream career without those worries.”

That dream career is nursing. Watson is currently dual-enrolled at Santa Fe College while taking advanced courses at Hawthorne Middle/High. She plans to earn her Associate of Arts degree by the time she graduates high school, and then continue her education at the University of Florida to pursue a nursing degree.

“I’ve always wanted to help people and be there for them, and I feel like nursing would be perfect,” she said. “I also want to be in an environment where I can work with a group or one-on-one.”

Watson is also a participant in the TRIO Educational Talent Search program, offered through Santa Fe College. The program is designed to support students who will be the first in their families to attend college, providing resources such as academic advising, college tours, and financial aid information.

“Melody is an excellent student,” said Lindsey Ragsdale, TRIO coordinator. “She literally personifies everything you want in a student. She is driven, she is positive, and she is always willing to go above and beyond to reach her goals.”

Her mother, Latoya Roberson, said she was both surprised and thrilled by the announcement. She believes Melody’s achievement will set a powerful example for her six siblings.

“It’s a stepping stone,” Roberson said. “She’s showing them that if you apply yourself, you never know who’s watching.”

Hawthorne Principal John Green echoed the sentiment, calling Watson a deserving recipient of the scholarship.

“She’s an outstanding student,” Green said. “She pours a lot into her academic pursuits and is very focused on what she needs to do. She knows education is the pathway to what she wants to accomplish. We’re really, really proud of her.”

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 ALACHUA ‒ Three local elementary schools in Alachua and High Springs received a major boost to their literacy efforts during National Library Week, thanks to a surprise visit from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF) and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), who marked 20 years of partnership with a generous donation of grants and books.

W.W. Irby Elementary School and Alachua Elementary School, both located in Alachua, along with High Springs Community School in High Springs, each received a $20,000 literacy grant from DGLF. In total, the schools received $60,000 in funding and nearly 4,500 new books from RIF to support reading engagement in and out of the classroom.

More than 30 Dollar General employees from area stores and the company’s Alachua distribution center joined RIF representatives on-site to help students select books to take home and encourage their love of reading outside the classroom.

“The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is thrilled to celebrate more than two decades of partnership with Reading Is Fundamental and our collective commitment to enhancing literacy and education in our hometown communities,” said Denine Torr, executive director of the foundation. “We are proud to celebrate today, and during National Library Week, by helping enhance local literacy programs that open doorways to new opportunities and brighter futures for Alachua-area students.”

The donation event highlighted the long-standing involvement of the three schools in RIF’s flagship Books for Ownership program. All three have participated since the national literacy partnership began in 2004. The program annually supports more than 60 elementary schools, offering students the opportunity to select high-quality books based on their interests.

The visit also reflected Dollar General’s continued investment in the area, with its Alachua distribution center serving as a key employer and community partner in North Central Florida. Since its founding in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $254 million in grants and supported more than 21.8 million individuals through adult, youth, family, and summer reading programs. The partnership with RIF has helped distribute more than 2.2 million books to approximately 680,000 students nationwide in communities served by Dollar General.

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Brian Murphy, 3002 Surveying president, teaches Scouts how to replicate a boundary survey using the Total Station with a data collector./ Photo by SUZETTE COOK/SFFGS /Special to Alachua County Today

ALACHUA COUNTY ‒ Eleven-year-old James Hutchison of Levy County didn’t waste any time putting his math skills to work during a recent surveying workshop for Scouts, hosted by the University of Florida’s School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS). And Scout Leader Hope Hutchison was not surprised that her son, Scout James Hutchison, got an early start working on his Surveying Merit Badge.

“He loves math and angles,” she said. And on April 12, along with 17 other Scouts from throughout Florida, James got to use math during hands-on lessons in surveying and mapping from top experts in the field.

Even before the event hosted by SFFGS new Geomatics Extension program got started, James volunteered to help Noble Haile, owner of Noble Precision Technologies, set up data collecting orbs for a lesson in 3-D scanning.

Haile along with Brian Murphy, president of 3002 Surveying, Eric Orndorff, market leader for Geospatial WGI, Nicholas DiGruttolo, survey manager for Pickett and Associates, and Marco Krieger, licensed surveyor for TRC Companies spent their Saturday in the woods at UF/IFAS Austin Cary Forest Campus off Waldo Road.

Each mentor brought the latest equipment they use in the field and Scouts rotated between five stations where they learned mapping and drafting, surveying history and careers, leveling, creating boundaries, and 3-D laser scanning.

At the end of the day, the paperwork for the Surveying Merit Badge for all 18 Scouts was signed by Orndorff, an Eagle Scout himself who later went on to become a Scout Master with Troop 432 in Gainesville and then became a merit badge counselor.

“I do credit Scouting,” Orndorff said about his career choice. “It sparked an interest.”

SFFGS Assistant Director for Geomatics Extension Katie Britt said that’s exactly why the event was held. Britt coordinates the only geomatics extension program in Florida and in the U.S., a position that SFFGS launched to not only spark interest in geomatics for youth but to help adults obtain the required certification to enter the high-demand career in Florida and beyond.

“We were excited to have 18 youth participate in the event and complete the surveying merit badge,” said Britt. “This badge provides a great overview of surveying. There are so many career opportunities in a wide variety of surveying applications in Florida, and it’s a career that many people aren’t even aware of until later in life.”

The goal of hosting this event was to introduce more youth to surveying as a career and find some future surveyors, she added. “We hope to be able to expand this event next year to include relevant badges for younger ages and include the whole of SFFGS. There are a ton of badges that our faculty and staff are experts in, and we’d love to introduce youth to what the whole school has to offer.”

SFFGS Associate Professor and Extension Coordinator Michael Andreu, Ph.D. said that is what Britt’s new role is aiming to accomplish.

“We are excited that this new extension program will engage youth in learning about job opportunities that they can pursue to support Florida’s economy,” he said.

Each of the topics relayed in the workshop resonated with the Scouts. Paisley Adkins,13, is a North Marion County seventh grader and a Scout with Troop 9563 from Anthony. She said most enjoyed the boundaries workshop with Murphy.

Carson Orndorff, 14, from Gainesville said, “Drafting was really cool and running out the scale map was pretty fun.”

Roy Sanbury, 16, from Troop 563 out of Ocala said that tracking was his favorite lesson. “Learning how to get the precise motions in and how expensive having these measurements done is fascinating,” he said. His goal is to be a firefighter, but he said that surveying knowledge would help in that career. “It could have to do with surveying,” he said. “You have to know the places you go to.”

Britt gives credit for the successful workshop to the experts who volunteered to help.

And it was Murphy’s initial suggestion to hold the workshop to increase recipients of the Surveying Merit Badge. He is a geomatics graduate of SFFGS as are DiGruttolo, Orndorff, and Krieger.

Terrell T. “Red” Baker, director of SFFGS looks forward to organizing similar opportunities in the months and years to come.

“We are grateful to our alumni and staff that came out on a weekend to support this important opportunity for local scouts,” he said. “Scouts not only earned merit badges to demonstrate their competency in surveying, but they got the chance to learn about the newest technologies and career opportunities in the surveying and mapping profession.

Scout James Hutchison agrees that he has discovered his calling. At the end of the day, he summed up his experience, “My dream job would probably be a surveyor,” he said.

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