A Pair of N.C. Community College Students Honored for Leadership and Perseverance
RALEIGH – The North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) announced today the recipients of the Governor Robert W. Scott Student Leadership Award and the Dr. Dallas Herring Achievement Award.
Katie Council, a student at Beaufort County Community College (BCCC) and Beaufort County Early College High School is the recipient of the 2022 Governor Robert W. Scott Student Leadership Award. Council serves as president of BCCC’s Student Government Association, student representative on the BCCC Board of Trustees and the Education and Agriculture Advisory Committee. She has been described by her peers as energetic and enthusiastic. BCCC officials note that Katie is an inspiration and has continuously created, managed and executed a number of important service projects on campus and that they could not ask for a more engaged student member on the Student Government Association. Council is described as a collaborator and consensus builder and helped improve the communication gap between students and the Board.
The award, sponsored by the N.C. Association of Community College Presidents (NCACCP), was established in 2004 to recognize student leadership on a statewide level while also honoring Scott, one of the earliest supporters of the NCCCS and who served as president from 1983 until 1994. Each award recipient receives a plaque and a $1,000 scholarship from the N.C. Community Colleges Foundation.
Paralee Cox, a student at Blue Ridge Community College who is scheduled to graduate with an associate degree in Surgical Technology this May, is the 2022 recipient of the Dr. Dallas Herring Achievement Award. Cox has overcome tremendous odds raised by parents who allowed drugs and violence to be a normal part of the home environment. She was in and out of foster homes beginning at the age of nine, and in 2014 was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison for drug-related charges. After earning her GED, she was able to make the right connections and has been a top-notch student at Blue Ridge Community College. Upon graduation, Cox will enter the workforce immediately with a job waiting in an Orthopedics practice.
The award was established in 2010 by the NCACCP to honor the late Dr. Dallas Herring, considered one of the founding fathers of community colleges in North Carolina. The award is presented annually to a current or former student who best embodies Herring’s philosophy of “taking people where they are and carrying them as far as they can go.” Each recipient receives a plaque and a $1,000 scholarship from the N.C. Community Colleges Foundation.
