Monday, June 9, 2025
Three TSU students from Wilson County who are planning service-oriented careers each received a $1,500 scholarship from the Tennessee State University National Alumni Association’s Wilson County Alumni Chapter on June 7.
About 110 people attended the alumni chapter’s annual Real Fathers, Real Men Scholarship Banquet at the Farm Bureau Expo Center in Lebanon. That number included nine charter members of the alumni club.
The alumni chapter awarded the scholarships to CheKenna Fletcher, Macie King and Jaleah Willingham. Fletcher also received a scholarship from the alumni club in 2016 and 2017; Willingham was also a scholarship recipient in 2024.
Fletcher, a Wilson Central graduate and a first-generation college student, is a fourth-year student in the agricultural science doctorate program at TSU and works in the research lab there. She got her undergraduate degree from TSU and her master’s from Purdue University in public health.
“I am studying to try to make us all healthier,” she said. “This scholarship really takes a financial burden off of me and helps me to finish school.”
Fletcher said that TSU and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville have the only food sciences programs in the state.
King, a rising sophomore who graduated from Wilson Central High, is a business administration major. She said she plans to open a funeral home in Wilson County.
King is a third-generation TSU student; her mother and grandmother graduated from the university.
Willingham, entering her senior year, is majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry. She said she plans to attend medical school with the goal to become a doctor in a NICU facility.
“This scholarship helps to make sure all of my things in college are covered. It gives me the flexibility of not having to work so I can focus on my classes,” she said.
Pastor Robert Jordan, a TSU alumnus who has served at Picket Rucker United Methodist Church in Lebanon and churches in Nashville, was the keynote speaker.
He used his relationship with his three children and eight grandchildren as examples of the alumni club’s Real Fathers, Real Men mission.
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