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Updated: August 30, 2025 @ 2:50 am
Geneva Cooper is shown.
Geneva Cooper is shown.
A less traditional scholarship is on the horizon for Murray State University nursing students. The Geneva Lee Jackson Cooper and Lt. Col. Wendy S Collins, USAF, Nurse Corps, Retired, Nursing Scholarship is designed to serve “promising average students.”
“I just want to reward that average student that’s struggling to get through,” said Lt. Col. Wendy Collins.
“You know, I just see the kids putting in 35-40 hours a week in a job and trying to go to school during the day and it just warmed my heart to know how hard they worked.”
She was never a straight A student herself, and chose to support non-traditional students who are still working to achieve their education goals. Students with a GPA of between 2.65 and 3.25 are eligible for this scholarship.
Collins described the ideal candidate for this scholarship as, “(Students) that the teachers felt very sure they would continue and graduate and be good nurses, but because of the situations they are in, may be struggling to study and work at the same time.”
She chose now as the appropriate time to endow this scholarship as a way to honor her friend Geneva Lee Jackson Cooper, who attended MSU with Collins and passed away in September 2022.
“We had numerous classmates who either lived in Madisonville or gravitated to hospitals in (the Hopkins County) area, and I would like for them to know about this scholarship,” said Collins. “Geneva went on to teach in what was then the Department of Nursing for some 37 years. She touched the lives of many graduates of the MSU Nursing Program.”
She went on to say many nurses in the area speak fondly of classes led by Mrs. Cooper.
“That’s the way every student that ever had her felt about her,” said Collins. “She was just a one of a kind human being.”
The scholarship will be awarded for the first time in 2026. Collins asks that friends, classmates, and students of Geneva Cooper donate to the endowment fund so that it can support many future students.
People interested in donating can do so by mailing a check to Murray State University, Kevin Munsey, Office of Development at 200 Heritage Hall in Murray, Ky. The name of the scholarship should be included in the memo line of the check.
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