Page 3 - ElDorado.Promise

The Promise,
in January in the old El Dorado High School gym.
On Jan. 22, 2007, Murphy Oil Corp. made an announcement that would change the lives of many El Dorado High School graduates and their parents. It was the first public announce- ment of the El Dorado Promise – a $50 million scholarship gift
from Murphy to graduates of EHS.
And the 10th anniversary of that unprecedented event is fast
approaching.
As the news of the scholarship that pays tuition and man-
datory fees for all EHS graduates who have been accepted to a two- or four-year college begin to sink in locally, the news spread throughout the United States and to several overseas countries.
KARK 4 news in Little Rock reported on Oct. 15, 2007, “It hasn’t even been a year since Murphy Oil pledged millions of dollars to El Dorado public schools to help students pay for college, but the district is already seeing the benefits of what’s known as ‘The El Dorado Promise’.” At that time the televi- sion station reported that enrollment in the El Dorado School District was up by almost 140 students – thanks to the new scholarship program.
Rachel Ball, who was a freshman at EHS when the announce- ment was made, said at that time, “I know that I do have a promising future now and that I won’t just have to settle for anything, that I can go wherever I want to go and fulfill those dreams.”
And she has. Ball has graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor’s degree in education in communi- cation disorders and is currently enrolled at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in her second year of graduate school. She is expecting to graduate in May with a master’s degree in speech language pathology.
In a Dec. 27, 2007 issue of “Converge Magazine,” the simi- larities between the cities of El Dorado and Kalamazoo, Mich., were reported. The El Dorado Promise was patterned after The Kalamazoo Promise, with two main exceptions – The El Dorado Promise pays for students to attend any accredited college or university in the country while The Kalamazoo Promise only pays for students to attend colleges in Michigan. Also, The Kalamazoo Promise is good for four years and The El Dorado Promise is good for five years.
According to the “Converge Magazine” report, “Kalamazoo and El Dorado were both built on industries that have been waning for years; both have been consistently losing popula- tion and due to these factors, both have been searching for a
Promise 10th AnniversAry
far and wide
The excitement was contagious. For days, weeks, months and even years, people have been marveling about the announcement that was made that cold day
By Janice McIntyre
News-Times File Photo
In The Beginning: City Editor Janice McIntyre was on hand for the first El Dorado Promise announcement on Jan. 22, 2007 at El Dora- do High School. The next day, the News-Times declared Jan. 22 a “$50 million day.”
remedy to solve their ailing economies.
“Their mutual fix: an unprecedented experiment in eco-
nomic development – up to full college tuition scholarships and mandatory fees for all graduates in their districts with no merit or need-based stipulations. The only requirement is location – the scholarships are all-inclusive, based solely on the student’s residence in the district. The scholarships fully cover college tuition for those who have been enrolled in the districts since kindergarten. A partial scholarship of at least 65 percent tuition paid is offered for students who entered after kindergarten but before 10th grade, with the percentage increasing for those who spend more years in the system. The hope is that families and companies will move to these
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el DorADo news-times – JAnuAry 29, 2017 – 3