As a community-based organization in the Upstate, Broad River Electric Cooperative recognizes the role and responsibility that we have to support our local students and cultivate future leaders. That’s why we created the scholarship award for which members can nominate their children or grandchildren during the cooperative’s annual meeting in the spring.
This year, we awarded $1,000 scholarships to David “Mac” Russell and Anna Hill, who just recently began their freshman year of college.
Russell, who is from Spartanburg, began his freshman year at The Citadel in August with the support of the cooperative’s scholarship. He plans to study engineering and has an interest in marine structural engineering. One day he hopes to own his own construction firm. Russell says he is looking forward to the structure that The Citadel provides and to the relationships he will gain along the way.
Russell graduated from Spartanburg High School, where he was a member of the student council and the lacrosse and fishing teams. He was also a member of two social service clubs—the Keystone Club, a leadership and networking organization, and the Tipper Club, an organization that volunteers and donates to charities in the Upstate and raises money for a scholarship to send one person to Camp Falling Creek.
Russell is grateful to his grandparents, who surprised him with the scholarship, and to Broad River Electric for providing him with tuition support.
A Gaffney native, Hill just began her first year at the University of South Carolina in August. As a Gamecock, she plans to study Business at the Darla Moore School of Business and hopes to eventually work in the pharmaceutical sales industry.
Hill attended Gaffney High School where she played volleyball and worked on the yearbook staff. She was also part of community service organizations that raised money for charities and created events to provide for children in need.
“College isn’t cheap, and this is really going to help,” Hill said of the scholarship she was awarded. “I just want to thank Broad River for the scholarship, it’s a really big deal and I was so excited to find out that I got it.”