About 750 students, parents, friends, and educators crowded into Allan Hancock College’s Joe White Memorial Gymnasium on June 3 to attend the 41st annual Allan Hancock College Foundation scholarship awards banquet. According to college officials, the foundation awarded more than $235,000 in scholarships to 201 students.
The theme for the evening was “Community Supporting Community,” with the recognition that without community support, the scholarship program would not exist. Foundation donors awarded scholarships of up to $7,500 to students from all over the Central Coast.
This year, the prestigious Marian Hancock Scholarship was awarded to Humberto Maldonado-Guzman. The scholarship is named in honor of the late Marian Hancock, the wife of the college’s namesake, Capt. G. Allan Hancock. Mrs. Hancock was a staunch supporter of the college and the scholarship program during her lifetime.
The Marian Hancock award recognizes the scholarship committee’s choice for most outstanding and deserving student of the
academic year.
According to a press release, Maldonado-Guzman received numerous academic awards in high school, despite not knowing English before entering school.
To help pay for his education at Hancock, Maldonado-Guzman works as a math tutor during the week and joins his immigrant parents in the fields on weekends. He has achieved a 4.0 GPA in his engineering courses, and an overall GPA above 3.5. He’s the first in his family to attend college. He plans to transfer to Cal Poly to earn a degree in mechanical engineering.
This article appears in Jun 17-24, 2010.
