In her senior year, this enterprising Magnolia High School student attended classes every weekday morning, worked as a teacher’s aide from noon to 3 p.m. and had a second job at the Sno White Laundry until 5:30 p.m. The well-rounded young woman was a member of Quiz Bowl, Student Council, Art Club, Internship Club, Drama Club and Science Club. She lettered on the swim team and was a member of the Arkansas Association of Young Artists. Still she maintained a 3.9 grade point average.   Now a freshman at Southern Arkansas University, Chelsea Spurlock is the 2007 recipient of the YAC Pringle Scholarship award. Her commitment to her studies, activities and athletics is punctuated by a dedication to volunteerism and community service.

“My YAC group went to Magnolia Specialized Services and read to mentally challenged children,” Chelsea said. “I helped work on presentations about YAC to the Magnolia Rotary Club and to future YAC members. But I was a volunteer before I was in YAC and I continue to do volunteer work outside YAC.”

Some of her favorite projects involved collecting and distributing diapers to families of refugees in Magnolia after Hurricane Katrina and raising funds through the “Can Cancer” Relay for Life project. She also enjoyed organizing friends to make a gift to their English teacher who retired to care for her cancer-stricken husband.

Chelsea is a person who takes responsibility for herself as well as others.  An English and journalism major, she shoulders the full financial burden for her college education. “Writing is truly a passion of mine, and I dream of making a career out of it,” she said. “I would love to work for a newspaper or magazine right here in Arkansas.”

Morrilton High School graduate Johnathan Conley aspires to become a nanotechnologist, confident that this emerging field of physics is the new scientific frontier.  He states that he dreams that his “individual ideas, actions and discoveries will [someday] have an impact upon the rest of the world.”   Johnathan was a member of the Conway County Community Foundation Youth Advisory Council (YAC) for three years.  He also participated in several other organizations including Conway County Community Center (C-4), band, French Club, Student Council, Art Club, and academic competitions, but his real strength was revealed in programs and projects he researched and organized himself. After a traumatic lawnmower accident, Johnathan designed a yard machine safety program, but this “invention” pales in comparison to the program he designed as a memorial for two former Morrilton band members.

To honor these students, Johnathan founded a project to collect and refurbish band instruments for young musicians who could not afford to purchase them.  Johnathan also spearheaded high school projects to stamp out smoking and heightened the dangers of drugs and alcohol, to raise money for tsunami relief and to collect supplies for hurricane relief, to develop funds for cancer research and to promote cultural and racial appreciation and communication.

In his application, Johnathan states that “community service is the language of the spirit”…and endeavoring to become more proficient in that language is his reason to set high goals and standards for himself.  His future aspirations include a plan to major in engineering at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and to then pursue a Ph.D.

Perhaps it is this searching and serving that will lead Johnathan to realize his dream to become an inventor who will “create a better world through nanotechnology” even to be the scientist who makes that breakthrough that will “be the basis of a new age” for our world.

Johnathan’s aspirations are awe inspiring, and the Arkansas Community Foundation is pleased to support his early steps toward those goals through the YAC Pringle Scholarship Award.

Lance Myers, the YAC Pringle Leadership Award winner, is also an outstanding representative of his community, his school and his Youth Advisory Council.  After being “recruited” by a former Pringle Leadership awardee Brad Brady, Lance led the Hot Springs Area YAC as president his senior year and was active in other roles for four years.  He is a graduate of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Science and the Arts and will pursue his college degree at Baylor University.