City leaders want Matt Atkinson’s name to live on in Green Bay for generations, but in order for that to happen they need to raise more money.

On September 14 last year, Atkinson told school staff at Green Bay East High School about an attack three of his peers were planning.

Police arrested East students William Cornell and Shawn Sturtz, and graduate Bradley Netwal, and found weapons including homemade napalm. The three are scheduled to stand trial in April.

City leaders say time is running out to meet a $50,000 goal for a scholarship created in Atkinson’s name.

Matt is commonly referred to as a “normal” or “average” high school senior, except for what he did last year.

“What he did by notifying the school resource officer and staff about what occurred obviously helped thwart off a Columbine-type event,” Police Chief Jim Arts said.

“To take that bold step is tough for anybody to do, and especially for a kid to do, a high school kid, and he did that,” Mayor Jim Schmitt praised.

So far the city has raised $15,000 for the Matt Atkinson Scholarship of Honor fund. That’s well short of $50,000 by the end of this school year.

The scholarship is already getting exposure through a web site, but the city says it needs more. Earlier this week, a letter was sent to businesses and private individuals in the Green Bay area asking for more help in reaching the goal.

“By raising the $50,000, the scholarship sustains itself, and there’s no more money being put into it,” Chief Arts explained. “The interest earned actually would pay for the scholarship that the young person would receive.”

The scholarship will pay Matt’s full tuition as he enrolls at NWTC next fall for a two-year computer degree. But city leaders say the real purpose of this scholarship is to ensure future outstanding students are rewarded under Matt’s name.

“One hundred years down the road, someone’s going to say, ‘Why is it called the Matt Atkinson Scholarship?’ and we’ll be able to say, ‘Because he did a good civic thing.’”

* Visit the Scholarship of Honor web site http://www.mattatkinsonscholarship.com/

News Source: www.wbay.com

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 10:09 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.