BUCKHANNON, W.Va. — The captain of the Parkersburg High School volleyball team says she would like to help the Big Reds win a state championship during the coming school year before she graduates and moves on to college.
Worries about how she’ll pay for college will not be a distraction for Kathryn Quillen from Vienna during her senior year. That’s because she is the grand prize winner of this year’s MVB Bank West Virginia Scholar Program and will receive a full, four year scholarship to West Virginia Wesleyan in Buckhannon valued at $125,000.
“I didn’t think I had any chance,” said Quillen who joined the ten other finalists at West Virginia Wesleyan on Wednesday where the winners of the MVB Bank West Virginia Scholar Program were announced during a luncheon.
“It was absolutely breathtaking. I had no idea that I would win it. I didn’t even know what to think. I’m still shaking,” she told MetroNews shortly after the announcement.
In addition to leading the volleyball team, Quillen is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and is also part of the Parkersburg High School Chamber Choir. Her parents own and operate an interior design company in Vienna and she has two younger sisters.
“Coming from a family of three girls, we’re going to have to pay for three people to go to college, so it’s just going to be a huge opportunity now (for my family),” Quillen said of the scholarship.
She said she plans to major in pre-medicine at West Virginia Wesleyan and, after that, study either cardiology or dermatology. Her goal is to one day practice in the Mountain State. “I just love the scenery and anywhere I go, when you come back to West Virginia, it’s just so more beautiful than any other place,” Quillen said.
Quillen’s scholarship includes full tuition and fees along with room and board starting with the Fall 2015 semester.
The second prize was a four-year, $5,000 scholarship at West Virginia Wesleyan and it went to Ashley Walker from Liberty High School in Clarksburg. The third prize was a four-year, $2,500 scholarship at West Virginia Wesleyan and it went to John Goellner from Trinity Christian High School in Morgantown.
The MVB Bank West Virginia Scholar Program is now in its sixth year. It’s open, each year, to every high school junior in West Virginia.
In addition to MVB Bank, West Virginia Wesleyan and MetroNews, the sponsors for the 2014 West Virginia Scholar Program are the West Virginia Forestry Association, the West Virginia Hospital Association, the West Virginia Home Builders Association and Friends of Coal.