by Jeremiah Hatcher
The Paducah Sun
November 20, 2024
Used with permission.
The McCracken County Community Career Endowment announced Tuesday that a total of six African American students from McCracken County Public Schools and Paducah Public Schools have been selected for the Class XV of the PaxtonScholars program.
The scholars are Mariah Shumpert, Quinton Turner, and Tazhenay Walker from Paducah and Rahkaela Davis, Cheyenne Caldwell, and Donteona Shumpert from McCracken County.
The scholars were announced during a Holiday Dinner in their honor Tuesday at Big Ed’s in Paducah. Each PaxtonScholar received an HP Pro laptop and backpack, along with scholarship funding for the first two semesters of college.
Class XV PaxtonScholars are, from left, Rahkaela Davis, Donteona Shumpert, Cheyenne Caldwell, Mariah Shumpert, Tazhenay Walker, and Quinton Turner.
This year’s class is the first group to be recognized following the passing of long-time philanthropist and MCCCE co-founder Peggy Paxton, who died in October at the age of 91. She co-founded the organization with her husband, Fred Paxton, in January 2006. Since its inception, the organization has honored 90 students as PaxtonScholars. Fred Paxton also served as the board chairman of Paxton Media Group, and for a time as the publisher of The Paducah Sun and president of WPSD-TV. He died in April 2006, just a few months after the endowment was established.
During Tuesday’s dinner, Don Mitchell with the MCCCE recognized the Paxtons as a driving force behind advancements in education for students in the area. Mitchell spoke of their absence and plans for the organization moving forward.
“It hurts,” Mitchell said. “It was in her heart. It wasn’t just Mr. Fred’s heart; it was her heart, too. She came to the last three of four of summer scholarship award programs and met with our students, had a wonderful time meeting our students. This is kind of hard — the first one without her — because she really cared about what we were doing.”
Students chosen for the PaxtonScholars program receive scholarship funds based on their grade point averages in their junior and senior years of high school and through the first two semesters of college.
According to the MCCCE, the program aims to enhance student self-esteem, parent or guardian advocacy, peer and mentor interaction, maintenance and improvement of academic performance and preparation for college transition for Black students in Paducah and McCracken County schools. To learn more about the McCracken County Community Career Endowment, visit mccce.org.