Our daughter’s receiving an Alworth scholarship upon graduation from Hibbing Community College in 1994 meant–most obviously–that as parents, we had just been relieved of a major share of the financial burden of paying for a college education, a large monetary outlay given the ever escalating cost of a college degree today.

          However, and in a sense more importantly, that award meant that someone, someone objective with an appreciation of scholarship and work ethic and perseverance, recognized in our daughter the same values that we had come to treasure in her.

          We, as parents, had watched her strive to do her best in anything and everything that she took part in, from school work to rifle team to track team. Strive, perhaps, too hard to the point of near compulsion until she felt as comfortable as she could make herself–yet really never totally comfortable–with her efforts.

          That Alworth scholarship announced, “Your priorities were right, Jessica. Hard work and dedication do pay off. Now go and apply those same values to the pursuit of a college education.”

          So the awarding of an Alworth scholarship was an affirmation–for us as parents as well as our daughter–of the values that we had tried to instill in her and the value that she found in herself.