2011 TILF Scholarship Banquet
By Brenda Baxendale, Program Administrator | Monday, March 07, 2011 2:15 PM
The annual Scholarship Banquet for the Texas Interscholastic League Foundation (TILF) was held at the AT&T Executive Conference Center on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin on Feb. 21. TILF is the scholarship program for the University Interscholastic League. Scholarship recipients, TILF Board members, donors and UIL directors and staff attended the banquet.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Thomas Melecki, Director of the Office of Student Financial Services at UT-Austin. Dr. Melecki spoke about the importance of private and corporate donations in funding scholarship programs. He said that the University of Texas at Austin could lose more than $36 million in state and federal student financial aid for the 2011-12 academic year. This represents a 37 percent reduction in the amount of federal funds available for scholarships.
“It’s getting tougher and tougher to go to college, especially for students from low and middle income families,” he said. “Clearly, the economic problems that have affected the private sector of our country are clearly catching up with the public sector of our country, and unfortunately, legislatures and Congress have to look for ways to conserve spending and try to cut back.”
Thus, Dr. Melecki said the support of individuals such as TILF donors, Dr. Teresa Lozano Long and Joe R. Long, The Nelda C. & H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation and State Farm Insurance, will become even more critical to students’ abilities to reach their educational goals.
After the keynote, scholarship recipients spoke briefly about themselves and their UIL involvement. (See video)
“This portion of the event is the highlight of the evening for me,” UIL journalism director Jeanne Acton said. “It is a reminder to us of the importance of the UIL and TILF.”
Nathanael Bonney, a graduate from Los Fresnos High School, said that he came from a small town in South Dakota where only four extracurricular activities existed; boys football, boys basketball, girls basketball and girls volleyball. He was thrilled when he moved to Texas and discovered the wide range of UIL activities.
Kaine Korzekwa, a graduate from Karnes City High School said he competed in Editorial Writing and CX Debate while in high school.
“I didn’t compete in UIL for a scholarship, glory, honor or prize,” Korzekwa said. “I competed because I loved it. I cannot imagine my high school memories without the speech competitions, the CX Debate octafinals, the One-Act plays and that journalism state win. Competing through UIL and TILF has given me something nothing else can and it is right here; it is inside me in an indescribable way. And you can’t put a money value to that.”
Case Nice, a graduate from The Woodlands High School, competed in CX Debate while in high school. She believes the skills she gained in competition will be very useful in her college career and beyond.
“My experiences in cross examination debate have certainly fueled a passion for rhetoric and argumentation that has led me to seriously consider attending law school and eventually practicing law somewhere down the line,” Nice said.
Dr. Charles Breithaupt, Executive Director of the UIL, ended the evening by challenging all of the scholarship recipients to “leave a legacy” right now.
“Many of you are already involved in volunteer work and doing things to help change the world — not just at UT, not just in Austin, not just in Texas, not just in the U.S., but all over this globe,” he said. “Nobody understands that better than a student at the University of Texas because we are bigger than just us.”
The TILF awarded approximately $1.3 million to nearly 600 students during the 2010-2011 academic year. To be eligible to apply to the TILF Program, students must have competed in one of the 23 UIL Academic Contests at the state level and must also be graduating high school seniors planning on attending an accredited college or university in Texas by the upcoming fall semester.
Contests are as follows: Accounting, Calculator Applications, Computer Applications, Computer Science, Current Issues and Events, Debate (Cross-Examination & Lincoln-Douglas), Journalism (Editorial Writing, Feature Writing, Headline Writing & News Writing), Literary Criticism, Mathematics, Number Sense, One-Act Play, Ready Writing, Science, Social Studies, Speech (Prose Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation, Informative Speaking & Persuasive Speaking) and Spelling & Vocabulary.
The 2011 application deadline is May 14, 2011. Further information also can be found on the TILF website: http://www.uiltexas.org/tilf