Like many college students, Nick Bagnall of Hannibal is painfully aware of how expensive a college education is. His “pain” has been relieved thanks to a $15,000 University of Missouri Flagship Scholarship.
Bagnall was honored Monday as the first Marion County recipient of the scholarship during a ceremony at the courthouse in Palmyra.
“It’s great,” said Bagnall, a senior political science major at MU. “I have a lot of people to thank for it. I’m glad I received this especially in the face of rising education prices in addition to rising food and energy prices. Living on a shoestring budget is kind of alleviated here with $15,000 in nearly fully discretionary spending.”
Bagnall is the son of David Bagnall and David and Terri Harney. Terri Harney called the scholarship a blessing.
“It’s a blessing especially when you have five children, which I do, and a grandchild,” she said. “With the economy that amount of money really is going to help our family. It’s just amazing that someone would do that for the community. It’s really nice.”
The scholarship money was made available through the estate of Harry Landis, a former Marion County resident. Landis passed away earlier this year at the age of 108.
Landis’ nephew, Richard Turner, is proud of his late uncle’s contribution to the scholarship program.
“He said he had planned to give us (family members) all some money, but he said he looked around and said, ‘You’re getting along pretty good without it,’ so he came up with this idea. We are so delighted and so proud that we can be a part of a family of an individual with that kind of character,” he said.
“We’re very fortunate to have an estate gift from Mr. Harry Landis. He funded Marion and Caldwell counties and we have Clark and Audrain, and we’re working on other counties,” said Jo Turner, director of the Flagship Scholars Program. “We need generous people who believe in education to step up and help fund these scholarships.”
Providing educational opportunities is the root goal of the Flagship scholarship program, according to Jo Turner.
“It’s really about promoting college access and opportunity,” she said. “Missouri is lagging behind on the rate of college graduates. Many of our counties have a very low rate of college graduates so we want to create more opportunities for students to get a full scholarship to go to the University of Missouri, one of the premier universities in the nation, and then to be committed to helping other people get to college by giving back.”
Recipients of a Flagship scholarship are expected to give back at least 20 hours per year in their home communities by promoting education and college attendance.
The scholarship may be used at MU with no restrictions relative to the student’s intended degree, major or academic unit. It is intended to help cover tuition and fees, as well as other educational expenses, including room, board and books at Mizzou.
Jo Turner explained the criteria used to select scholarship winners.
“This year for the first year we focused on students who are currently at MU who are going to be seniors who came from those selected counties. Then they had to make an application and they were interviewed. We looked at their scholastic ability. We looked at their financial need. We looked at if they were the first in their family to go to college, which is one of the criteria we’re using. We also looked at whether they would be committed to giving service back in their community by promoting college,” she said.
Bagnall, a 2005 graduate of Hannibal High School, was praised by HHS Principal Ryan Sharkey.
“Not only is it a great honor for Hannibal High School, but I had the privilege of knowing the young man, having him in class for geometry and algrebra II both. He’s an outstanding student. He was an outstanding young man in high school and I’m not surprised it’s a Hannibal High School student as we have a great deal of quality young people at our school,” he said.
