Contact: Maridith Geuder
Jennifer Jennings (l), MSU's first Jerry Dickerson Memorial Scholar, is congratulated by Dickerson's widow, Page, and President Charles Lee.
Jennifer E. Jennings of Starkville is the first student to receive Mississippi State's Jerry D. Dickerson Jr. Memorial Scholarship.
The Mississippi Delta Community College graduate will enter the university in August as a junior psychology major.
The $1,500 award is a memorial to the 1983 MSU alumnus and Durant native who was a casualty of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon.
"In the days following 9/11, Mississippi State and the MSU Foundation endowed a scholarship in the name of Lt. Col. Jerry Dickerson," said foundation executive director Richard Armstrong. The scholarship "ensures that this and future generations will remember and honor Lt. Col. Dickerson and the things for which he lived," he added.
Armstrong said the scholarship is designated for any academic major in the College of Arts and Sciences who, like Dickerson, enters from a community college. Dickerson was a Holmes Community College graduate who went on to earn a 1983 bachelor's degree in economics at MSU.
While at Mississippi Delta, Jennings maintained a 3.9 (out of 4.0) grade-point average and was selected for membership in Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for community college students.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Terry Buchanon, she is a 2000 graduate of Riverside High School in the Washington County community of Avon. She attended Delta State University during the 2002-03 school year.
After completing her MSU degree, Jennings plans to pursue a career as a therapist specializing in autistic, conduct disordered and defiant children.
For additional information about the Dickerson scholarship, telephone Amy Cagle of the MSU Foundation at (662) 325-1006.