Fayetteville Shale Scholarship Fund Announces $70,000 Donation
Companies working in the Fayetteville Shale Play announced Wednesday a $70,000 donation to the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton to support a program that trains workers for jobs in the state’s emerging gas industry.
The Fayetteville Shale Scholarship Fund, a volunteer organization made up of members representing several companies working at the north-central Arkansas unconventional natural gas play, donated the check to several UACCM officials and University of Arkansas System President B. Alan Sugg at the system’s Little Rock administration building.
“I know of several students who could not participate in this program if it were not because of these scholarships,” said Jeff Lambert, a petroleum technology instructor at UACCM.
Several scholarship winners from UACCM were on hand to accept the scholarships, and one student, John Strickland, told his success story.
“I went from being a college dropout and working for my father pouring cement, to this program and having a promising career in the gas industry,” Strickland said.
The number of students participating in the Petroleum Technology program at UACCM has risen from 36 at its inception in fall 2006 to 79 this spring - a 119 percent increase, according to Nathan Crook, chancellor at UACCM.
