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Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Savannah State University alumnus Monroe Thornton III, a personal injury attorney, has established a scholarship in his name to help high-achieving students in need of financial assistance at his alma mater.
Thornton said that he started the scholarship because he remembers how difficult it was to get scholarships during his undergraduate years.
“Most public scholarships are either merit based or need-based and many of those merit scholarships required extensive essay writing that I had to spend time completing, although I already had a full class schedule, was a student athlete, and participated in several extracurricular organizations.”
Despite being in need of financial assistance, he did not qualify for most needbased scholarships. “I wanted to create a scholarship that had a simple application process. More importantly, I wanted to financially assist students at Savannah State University, my alma mater, in a way that would have helped me when I was in college.”
The inaugural winners of the Thornton Scholarship were Atlanta Griffin (first place), McCayla Moody (second place) and McKenzie Langston (third place). Griffin’s scholarship is for $500, Moody received $250 and Langston $150.
The scholarship is open to rising sophomores and juniors currently enrolled at Savannah State and will be awarded annually.
Thornton said that the winners were selected by a scholarship committee made up of himself and fellow attorneys Carmen Paige and Jalen Johnson.
Each committee member selected their top three applicants along with a fourth alternate applicant. Once those names were submitted, the committee tallied up the students who received votes. In the event of any ties, a meeting was held to discuss the merits of the tied students’ applications.
The scholarship is announced via Instagram (@ attorneythornton) in early June. Applications will be accepted through a Google forms link included on the Instagram post. The application requires a resume, unofficial transcript and professional headshot. A letter of recommendation and statement of financial hardship (200 word max) are both optional. The scholarship application portal will close on July 31st. Recipients will be announced on August 31st.
Thornton is a native of Gainesville, Florida and graduated summa cum laude from SSU in May 2020 with a degree in English.
He received the President’s Second Mile Award during the virtual presentation of Savannah State’s 196th commencement ceremony in 2020. The award recognizes graduating seniors who have demonstrated outstanding leadership on campus and in the local community.
A former wide receiver on the SSU football team, Thornton tutored athletes and students in the Trio Student Support Services program. A member of the Golden Key Honor Society and National Society of Leadership and Success, he served as chapter leader of the campus English Honor Society and president of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. During his senior year at Savannah State, Thornton interned with the Savannah law firm of Cox, Rodman and Middleton LLC.
Thornton attended Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law where he was named to the Dean’s List. In law school, Monroe was a member of Cumberland’s nationally ranked trial team and competed in national competitions in New York, California, and Texas. Monroe completed various internships during law school, including an internship for the Honorable Judge John H. England III in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. During his internship with Judge England III, Monroe was selected as one of the nation’s first Federal Magistrate Judge Association Fellows. During Monroe’s second year of law school, he was elected Vice President of Cumberland’s Black Law Student Association.
He is currently a member of the legal team at Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, LLP in Alabama and is licensed to practice in both Alabama and Georgia.
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