Daily Skiff

The Ranch Management program announced two new endowed scholarships at the Annual Scholarship Dinner and will be giving five more scholarships in the 2008-2009 school year, said the Clark Society liaison and event planner for University Advancement.

The program now has 34 scholarships from living donors valued at $203,510. The program also has two scholarships from donors who are no longer living, valued at $11,000.

At the dinner, Ranch Management announced the recipient of the Intervet Ranch Management Scholarship, worth $1,171, and the six recipients of the Myrle and Marcella Greathouse Scholarship Fund scholarship, worth $15,108, said Lynn Taylor, the Clark Society liaison and event planner for University Advancement.

This semester, 22 of the 28 Ranch Management students are receiving financial aid, program director Kerry Cornelius said. He said scholarship recipients are chosen based first on need and then on academic performance.

Cornelius said many of the students need scholarships because their large land assets don't allow them to qualify for certain financial aid, and selling their land is not an option because it is their livelihood.

"Many of them are land rich but cash poor," Cornelius said.

John Merrill, emeritus director of the Ranch Management program, said many of the people who are in the Ranch Management program have already graduated from college and have exhausted their funds.

"(Financial support) is extremely important because many of the students who need this program can't afford it," Merrill said.

Merrill said ranching is usually not done for the money.

"Rancher's wages are often low because people do ranch work for love of it, not for the money," Merrill said.

Taylor also said the scholarships are needed.

"It's more important for (the Ranch Management) program to have more endowed scholarships than a traditional undergraduate student because there is less available to them," Taylor said.

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