From staff reports
Battery Creek High School’s Alex Vega has been chosen as one of the South Carolina State Fair’s 2024 recipients of its annual Ride of Your Life Scholarship program. This year, 53 high school seniors across the state have been chosen to receive these prestigious $10,000 scholarships.
Vega, a senior headed to Clemson University, graduated May 10 from Technical College of the Lowcountry as a Summa Cum Laude honors with Associate in Arts with a certificate in Arts/Liberal Arts Core and a Certificate in Arts/Math & English Core. He did this while maintaining a 5.142 weighted GPA in high school and participating in three sports and multiple clubs at Battery Creek.
Vega had already received a Carolina Heritage Insurance 2024 Scholarship Award worth $5,000.
“We’re thrilled to announce this year’s scholarship recipients and to invest in these students’ futures,” says South Carolina State Fair General Manager, Nancy Smith. “Our scholarship program is at the heart of what we do here at the South Carolina State Fair, and supporting future scholars from our state means a great deal to our organization.”
Each year, the South Carolina State Fair, a self-supporting 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, awards scholarships to South Carolina high school students planning to pursue their studies at any public or private college, university, or technical college in the state of South Carolina. These $10,000 scholarships are awarded at an annual rate of $2,500 and are based on academic and extracurricular achievement, communication skills, need and completeness of the application.
Since the program’s inception in 1997, the S.C. State Fair has awarded more than $5 million in scholarships.
This year’s recipients were chosen from a competitive pool of applicants from across the state, representing all seven of South Carolina’s congressional districts. The scholarship funds must be used at a South Carolina university, college, or institution and may cover tuition or other educational expenses such as on-campus housing, a computer or textbooks. Recipients must retain a 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale and enroll in no less than 30 credit hours each academic year to receive funding for that year.
