Each year during the Sun Youth Forum, the Las Vegas Sun conducts drawings for $1,000 scholarships awarded to Clark County seniors attending the event. Here are this year’s recipients:
- Edgar Cruz
- School: Virgin Valley High School
- Year/age: Senior, 17
- Clubs/activities: Football, marching band, and speech and debate team.
- Plans after high school: “My dream is to go to West Virginia University, but I probably can’t afford it so I’ll go to University of Nevada-Reno. I’ll study computer science and music, so I can incorporate music into video games.”
- Favorite part about the Sun Youth Forum: “We can talk about issues and express our feelings without being afraid of people shooing you out. We can have the ability to speak out.”
- This scholarship means: “Since I am from a low-income (home), this will help out my parents. It means a lot to me in paying off college tuition and not going into student debt.”
- Stephany Soto
- School: East Career & Technical Academy
- Year/age: Senior, 17
- Clubs/activities: Science club
- Plans after high school: “I plan to go to University of Nevada-Reno. I’m still deciding which major I want to go into — social psychology or criminology. I want to become a behavior analyst.”
- Favorite part of the Sun Youth Forum: “You get to express your opinion and there are other people in the group that have the same opinion as you, and just being able to get your thoughts out there and not have people put them down.”
- This scholarship means: “It means a lot. I’m in the middle class, and it’s hard for me to get financial aid, so I will mostly have to get loans and pay them back. This just means a lot because that’s less money I have to pay back.”
- Jake Wier
- School: Canyon Springs High School
- Year/age: Senior, 17
- Clubs/activities: Captain of forensics, speech and debate, National Honors Society
- Plans after high school: “I want to go to Michigan State University, where I’ve been accepted, for international relations. I plan to participate on the speech and debate team. I want to minor in economics and then move on to law school to be a criminal defense lawyer.”
- Favorite part of the Sun Youth Forum: “It gives us the opportunity to speak to adults in the community and tell them how we really fell. I feel most social change starts with a couple people being activists, and this is one of our only opportunities in high school to do that.”
- This scholarship means: “As a white male, middle class, there aren’t a lot of scholarships available to me, and this gives me security so I don’t have to worry about it.”
Compiled by Sun reporter Brian Nordli.
