Tue, May 20, 2008
Students Wrote Aviation-Themed Essays
The Virginia Department of Aviation
(DOAV) recently announced the 2008 recipients of the John R.
Lillard Virginia Airport Operators Council (VAOC) Scholarship and
the Willard G. Plentl, Sr. Scholarship.
Hunter Guilliams, this year’s $3,000 John R. Lillard VAOC
Scholarship award winner and a graduate of James River High School
in Buchanan, has enrolled in Virginia Tech’s aerospace
engineering program. He wrote in his application essay about his
longtime fascination with aviation. "Perhaps it was the freedom
offered by flying, the boundless feeling of the sky and the sense
that one could go anywhere," Guilliams wrote.
Steven Newcomb, this year’s $1,000 the Willard G. Plentl,
Sr. Scholarship award winner and a graduate of Lee-Davis High
School in Mechanicsville, has enrolled in Averett
University’s flight operations program with aspirations of
becoming of commercial pilot. "Flying city to city inside the
United State or across oceans to foreign countries would bring
continuous satisfaction to me," Newcomb wrote in his scholarship
application essay.
The John R. Lillard VAOC Scholarship is named in honor of John
R. Lillard, an aviation enthusiast and great humanitarian that
served in several leadership positions with the Capital Region
Airport Commission, Chesterfield County Airport and Eastern
Airlines. This scholarship is made possible through the kind and
generous support of the members of the VAOC and is awarded to a
Virginia high school senior that has maintained at least a 3.75
unweighted grade point average; plans a career in the field of
aviation; and must be enrolled or accepted into an aviation related
program at an accredited college.
The Willard G. Plentl, Sr. Scholarship is named in honor of
Willard G. Plentl, Sr., a military combat pilot veteran and former
Director of Aeronautics for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Plentl
retired from the Virginia Department of Aviation in 1984 and was
elected to the Virginia Aviation Hall of Fame that same year. This
scholarship is awarded to a Virginia high school senior with at
least a 3.5 unweighted grade point average; plans an aviation
career in a non-engineering area; and has been accepted into a
non-engineering, aviation-related post-secondary education
program.
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