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"We've been identified as the best community program in 24 states," Goza said. "It's a reflection on who we are as a community. When you think about the perception that Mississippi has from a national viewpoint, it's a pretty good thing. We're excited about the recognition."
Kay Burton, program director for the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce, said the key to Mississippi Scholars' success is the cooperation between the education system and the local business community.
"It's not just an educational program, not just a chamber program and not just a business community project," she said. "It takes all three of those pulling together, and I think that's the real story."
Mississippi Scholars, which encourages high school students to take on a more rigorous, advanced curriculum to prepare for college, began in 2006 with only 26 participants and $8,000 in scholarships. But the program grew as local businesses stepped up their donations and exploded last year as 10 state colleges sent their own financial backing.
Publicizing the program's success is always a good thing, but Burton expects the positive impact of the westward-bound news to spread to local economic development efforts. She said the spreading news of Mississippi Scholars is something local and state developers would tout to prospective industries and businesses pondering an expansion to Lincoln County.
"It is definitely something other communities want to have," Burton said. "It took a group of people who were committed and a community that was supportive, and the success is just the result of the right people doing the right thing."
With WICHE's member states preparing to dissect the program and apply the same methods in their own communities, local Mississippi Scholars officials are already working to make the magic happen again in 2010. Fundraising chairman David Culpepper said two additional state colleges - Delta State University and the University of Southern Miss - are being recruited to support the program, and so far the response has been positive.
"We are encouraging them to contact the other schools involved and see what kind of students they're getting," he said. "They'll see this as a small investment in recruiting this area."
With the economy still struggling to come out of its historic slump, Culpepper said Mississippi Scholars would seek to maintain last year's $92,000 funding level for 2010 from the colleges and eight local businesses. The maintenance will likely mean that a number of participating students will be left without scholarships at year's end, the program's only real dilemma and one organizers constantly work to improve.
At the Mississippi Scholars Banquet earlier this year, 60 of the 202 seniors - approximately 30 percent - were rewarded for their academic work with scholarships. Culpepper said it would take more donations from businesses and private citizens to spread the funding out to more students, a donation that will pay off for the community in the future.
"The hope and goal of this program is to prepare our students to go off to college and become better educated so that a percentage of them will come back to Brookhaven and Lincoln County and either open or manage a business," he said. "When they come back, they'll know someone cared about the community, and they will step up and give back, too. This is about making Brookhaven and Lincoln County a better place to live, bottom line."
