Cuivre River Electric Community Trust Awards $17,000 In Scholarships

Thirty-four students from Lincoln, Pike, St. Charles and Warren counties received a total of $17,000 in scholarship awards from the Cuivre River Electric Community Trust.

Students receiving scholarships are Ashley Banze, Hannah Basse, Alex Bencomo, Matthew Bencomo, Tyra Bowman, Mikail Brown, Benjamin Bruckerhoff, Stormy Devlin, Hannah Diederich, Dylan Donovan, Kayla Eisenbath, Tiffany Elliott, Kyriana Foster, David Fowler, Eric Fowler, Rachel Franck, Julie Goeglein, Samantha Hamilton, Emily Heidenreich, Jill Jarvis, Abigail Maestas, Amber Mennemeyer, Travis Mertens, Eric Miller, Ashley Oberdieck, Megan Perotti, Gina Pilla, Daniel Raterman, Austin Smith, Douglas Steiert, Andrew Struttmann, Christopher Struttmann, Samantha Twellmann and Kelsey Twiehaus.

Scholarship funds are donated by Cuivre River Electric members who participate in Operation Round Up by rounding up their electric bill payments each month to the next highest dollar. Since the program began in 1997, more than $765,000 has been awarded to help over 1,625 area students achieve their academic goals.

Students are eligible to be considered if they live in the Cuivre River Electric Cooperative service area and maintain a minimum GPA of 2.5 while attending undergraduate courses at an accredited university or technical school. Applicants are also asked to provide an official transcript and two letters of recommendation, write a narrative to highlight their academic achievements and state their career goals, and demonstrate a financial need. The scholarship may also be used for adult continuing education courses in their career fields.

In addition to scholarships, Operation Round Up was founded to help address unmet needs in the areas of health, youth, education, home weatherization, community and emergency services. These funds are available to help individuals, families and organizations in the CREC service area. Operation Round Up scholarship applications are available on the scholarship page. The next scholarship deadline is May 1, 2013.

CREC was established by local residents in 1941 to provide electricity in portions of Lincoln, Pike, St. Charles and Warren counties where electricity was not available. The cooperative now serves more than 60,000 homes and businesses. For more information on Operation Round Up and Cuivre River Electric Cooperative visit www.cuivre.com or call 800-392-3709, ext. 230.