From staff reports
The Josh Turner Scholarship Fund For The Arts is accepting scholarship applications through Feb. 1.
Those eligible to apply for the scholarship, established by Turner and his wife Jennifer in 2008, must be high school seniors from South Carolina wishing to enter the music business or undertake a career in the arts. The scholarship is intended to support students primarily from rural areas, and applicants must be focusing on a career that will introduce them to various opportunities in the music business or some discipline of the arts.
Growing up in rural South Carolina, Turner attended a small school and did not have the benefit of a comprehensive arts program at his high school. As a result, he felt behind his fellow students upon entering Belmont University as Commercial Vocal Performance major.
“I had never been taught music theory or heard about ear training. It was like a whole new language for me and I felt lost,” Turner said in a release. “There were only 75 people in my graduating class, and that translated into ‘not a lot of opportunities’ when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs, but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, a chorus the next, but nothing ever lasted.”
Turner’s experience at Nashville’s Belmont University, alongside his wife Jennifer’s love of the arts (she was also a Belmont music major), inspired the couple to start a scholarship fund that would jump-start high school students into a future in the music business or the arts.
The Josh Turner Scholarship Fund For The Arts supports students planning a career that will introduce them to various opportunities in the music business, from performing, writing, or publishing, to managing or producing, or some discipline of the arts, such as graphic design, photography, or painting to name a few.
“The requirement to apply for the fund is that the student should be interested in pursuing a job that is directly associated with the music industry or the arts. You don’t have to be a singer or songwriter, so that makes the possibilities endless,” Turner said.
The application can be found at https://www.cfmt.org/grants-scholarships/.
