Pocahontas CVB offers tourism scholarship

The Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau is once again offering its annual Tourism Scholarship. The scholarship will be offered to Pocahontas County residents who are graduating seniors in high school and who will be enrolling in a college program related to the tourism industry. Cara Rose, the bureau’s Executive director explains.

“The scholarship program is designed to help a student who is going into a 2 or 4 year degree program and they are intending to get a degree in a career related to tourism and hospitality,” said Cara. “It can be anything from recreation to hospitality management such as hotel Management. It can be culinary and even perhaps resort management or business management.”

The scholarship is for $1000 per year and will continue for 4 years as long as the student provides the bureau with annual transcripts and proof of continuing enrollment. Each application will be evaluated.

“The review and scoring of the applications is determined not only by what their career goals are, but also by their recommendation letters,”said Cara. “We review what kind of job histories they have and have they been involved in the tourism industry in some way, whether it is from work or even volunteering for events.”

Cara goes on to describe the application process.

“The deadline is April First for the applications to be submitted,” said Cara. “The students complete the applications. They can pick up the applications from the office here in Marlinton. They can call us and we can email it, or they can pick up those applications from the guidance counselor at PCHS. They need a personal recommendation that can come from anyone outside of family members, and two recommendations from the school, whether it be a teacher, counselor or principal, whoever they choose.”

The scholarship award will be announced at Senior Night at Pocahontas County High School.

“We’re proud to sponsor this scholarship,” said Cara. “We think it is a great investment in Pocahontas County students. Hopefully they choose to return to Pocahontas County and use their education to improve the hospitality Industry, so that’s certainly one of the objectives in offering this so that we continue to grow our workforce in this Industry.”

Again, the deadline to apply for this scholarship is April first.