Gates Millennium Scholarship

Two area students part of Gates Millennium Scholars Program

Welcome to our online comments feature. To join the discussion, you must first register with Disqus and verify your email address. Once you do, your comments will post automatically. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including unpopular ones. We ask only that you keep the conversation civil and clean. We reserve the right to remove comments that are obscene, racist or abusive and statements that are false or unverifiable. Repeat offenders will be blocked. You may flag objectionable comments for review by a moderator. Enter the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The program was established in 1999 to provide “outstanding” low-income African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian Pacific Islander American and Hispanic American students with the opportunity to complete an undergraduate college education in any discipline they choose. This year there were more than 20,000 applicants for 1,000 scholarships. Recipients are selected based on academic achievement, community service and leadership. Boone and Ramos went through the arduous application process and were rewarded this spring with the scholarships, which pay for their entire undergraduate education and selected graduate degrees. The only two local recipients of the Gates scholarship are both employees of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Gordon, Murray and Whitfield Counties. Boone works at the Calhoun location while Ramos is employed at the Dalton unit on Underwood Street. There were no interviews during the application process. Applicants had to write seven essays on topics including how the scholarship would help, the person’s strengths and weaknesses, and describing an injustice they had experienced. They also needed a recommender or nominator to write five essays on their behalf. The application deadline was in January and the finalists were announced in March. “It’s really been an eye-opener for me,” Ramos said. “A lot of them are going through some rough things now. This parent doesn’t have a job or this parent is not even at home. They come here to get away from all of that and when I was growing up, my parents worked 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. so they weren’t home at night. It was just me and my older sister. I would have loved to have come to a place like this when I was a kid.

Newcomb student wins Gates Millennium Scholarship - Farmington ...

NEWCOMB — Head Start teachers identified Cornelius Tsipai as gifted before he could tie his shoes.

Cornelius, known as Corn, was 3 when he started down an academic path he hoped would take him through high school, college and beyond.

That path widened this spring when Cornelius, 18, was awarded a Gates Millennium Scholarship, an honor funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and given to 1,000 minority students every year with significant financial need. More than 23,500 students applied for the scholarship this year.

For Cornelius, who graduated last month from Newcomb High School, this means a full-ride scholarship through his doctorate program.

"That's tuition, fees, housing, books, meals, a parking permit," he said Thursday in Shiprock.

Touted as a "good-through-graduation" scholarship, Gates Millennium funding can be used at any college or university of a student's choice. The program also offers personal and professional development throughout a student's college career, according to the Gates Millennium website.

Cornelius received word of the scholarship a couple of weeks before high school graduation. The news spread across the Navajo Nation and within the Central Consolidated School District.

"The first thing that came to my mind was a sigh of relief," Cornelius said. "College is expensive, so this is better for my mom, my family. Then it was like, wow, I actually did this."

Cornelius, the oldest of four boys who grew up in Two Gray Hills, is the first in his family to attend college.

"He's a first generation college student," said his mother, Jeanne Tsipai. "From both sides of his family, none of us were able to go to college."

Cornelius attributes much of his academic success to his mother, who worked with teachers and principals to prepare him for higher education since he first entered a classroom.

Cornelius graduated from Newcomb Elementary and Newcomb Middle School before attending high school. He attended classes for gifted students throughout his career in the public school system.

"To me, with the Newcomb schools, I emphasized with his teachers that Cornelius needed to be challenged," Jeanne said. "One thing I encourage the people out there, the parents, is that the only way a child can succeed is if you're there full-time encouraging."

By high school, Cornelius was earning dual credit by enrolling in courses at San Juan College and Diné College, his mother said.

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