30th Annual MLK Jr. Scholarship Breakfast

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Today, the nation recognized one of the most influential figures of the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Locally, a group of Muskingum County organizations honored his memory by awarding scholarships to some of the most proficient students throughout the community.

MLK Scholarship Fund Co-Chairperson Carlotta Workman noted that this was the 30th anniversary of the event and explained the level of effort that students must put forward to meet the scholarship’s requirements. 

“They have to attain a 3.0 GPA or above, be an Honors CP/AP courses,” Workman said. “They must have applied to… accepted by a two or four year college and so forth. So we try to keep our standards high so that we can encourage those students to self actualize and be the best they can be in the classroom and as they go on to college, then become members of our community.”

Zanesville Day Nursery Administrator Deidra Corbett Ihlenfeld who is also on the scholarship board was there to accept her business’s recognition of their contributions to the community.

She described how the $1,000 scholarships get distributed to the students and just how quickly students can easily spend that amount on their educational expenses.  

“Well the scholarship can cover books, it can cover a host of things that the student might need,” Ihlenfeld said.” The money is given to the student but it must go for educational purposes  and that might be… I think mostly for books, it’s usually a book scholarship. Some might use it a little bit differently but it’s really meant for books. And books are very expensive and now everything is online and so everything you do online is very expensive.”

Previous scholarship winners have gone on to achieve success across a wide variety of careers and the scholarship committee is proud to have played a role in the students’ accomplishments. 

For more information about the MLK Jr. Scholarship, you can visit https://www.mlkscholarshipfund.org/

This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Book Scholarship winners: 

Alaysia Barnett, Zanesville High School

Jersey Draughn, Zanesville High School

Keolani Gill, West Muskingum High School

Malia Hampton, Philo High School 

Kassidy Jones, Zanesville High School

Aleea Jordan, Zanesville High School

Hailey Lepi, Bishop Rosecrans High School

Kaijah Minor, Maysville High School

Gael Oseguera, Tri-Valley High School

Kenley Piccone, West Muskingum High School

Gavin Pranoto, Tri-Valley High School

Makiah Smith, Zanesville High School

Isaac Trujillo, John Glenn High School

Mya Wallace, Zanesville High School

Isaiah Williams, Zanesville High School