Jacksonville Rotary Awards $7,000 to Four Students

Four students walked into a Jacksonville Rotary Club meeting last week and left with scholarships totaling $7,000 and a community cheering them on.

Greta Bryson-Adams and Emma Guidish, both Jacksonville High School graduates, each received $2,000 Jacksonville Rotary Scholarships. Both young women share a passion for pharmacy and an impressive dedication to volunteering.

Bryson-Adams learned to view service as a responsibility and opportunity, giving her time to her dance school, The Salvation Army, and the local animal shelter. Guidish adopted her grandmother's wisdom that volunteering isn't something you have to do but something you get to do, serving with United Way, the Jacksonville Area Community Food Center, and leading as student body president.

Landon Gilmore, a North Greene High School graduate, earned the Staff Sgt. Matthew Weikert Scholarship to study criminal justice. The award honors SSG Matthew Weikert of Jacksonville, who died serving in Afghanistan in 2010.

Gilmore participated in football, trap shooting, and bass fishing while giving back to his White Hall and Greene County communities. His goal is to become a police officer.

The Ripple Effect

The most groundbreaking moment came when Dominick York, a Routt Catholic High School senior, received the inaugural Rotary Vocational Student of the Year Award and $1,000 scholarship. York plans to pursue truck driving, and the Rotary Club created this new award specifically to celebrate vocational careers.

The club launched its Vocational Student of the Month initiative in December to affirm that skilled trades matter just as much as four-year degrees. This recognition sends a powerful message to young people that success looks different for everyone.

Rotarian Reg Ankrom captured the spirit of the day perfectly when he said commencement reminds us that communities are renewed not just by laws and institutions but by their children. "In every graduate is a quiet declaration that tomorrow still matters," he told the gathering.

These four students represent different paths and different dreams, but they share something essential: a commitment to serving others and building better communities.