Published 9:59 am Thursday, May 8, 2025
By Brent Maze
The Dallas Wilcox County Bama Club awarded $55,500 in scholarships to 14 area students to help them pursue their dreams at the University of Alabama next year.
James McNeill, scholarship chairman for the club, said that all but three of the students received a total of $4,500 each. The three other recipients were recipients of the UA Prestige Scholarship, which pays full tuition for four years and one year of housing. He said they were limited to $2,000 because of receiving that scholarship.
The recipients of this year’s scholarships are:
Since the inception of the club’s scholarship program, the club has awarded $475,000 in scholarships. And they have seen the endowment grow from the initial investment of $10,000 in the Sam Earl Hobbs scholarship to over $1 million with 14 different scholarship endowments.
“We’ve done quite well, and we want to continue growing,” McNeill said.
McNeill said they will likely have more scholarship money to award next year because they share a scholarship with the Houston, Texas, club.
Preston McGee, a former scholarship recipient and UA graduate in both 2023 for undergraduate and 2024 with his master’s degree, said don’t let where you come from limit what you can accomplish.
“A lot of people go out of Selma and Dallas County thinking,I’m from Selma; I can’t do anything,” McGee said. “Well, you have a former SGA president and plenty of other campus leaders that come right here from Selma and Dallas County. What I challenge you to do as you go to the university is to think about all that you’re going to do outside of class too.”
Brigie Kelley, regional admissions adviser for the undergraduate admissions office, encouraged students to branch out and meet other students from all over the country and world.
“You can make friends from all over,” said Kelley, who called herself a yankee. “You can make your Alabama community as big as you would like or as small as you would like. We have over 700 clubs and organizations on campus that I highly recommend people get involved in as much as you want.”
