Carson City philanthropist sets up scholarship

About a year ago, a friend of Bob Thomas sent him a subscription to the magazine published by Hillsdale College in Michigan. Now Thomas and his wife, Ingrid, want to send a Carson City student to study there.

"The more information I got, the more interested I was in the school and what they stood for," he said. "I want to promote a great education for somebody who is smart enough to take advantage of it."

The Thomases will donate $1,000 a year for four years to one student per year from Carson High School. The scholarship committee will choose the top five candidates and of them, the Thomases will select one to be the recipient.

A liberal arts college founded in 1844, it does not accept federal funds but receives its money through private sources.

In a letter written to Thomas, the president Larry Arnn wrote, "Just as it fought for independence 156 years ago, so it fights today. We refuse, for example, all forms of federal taxpayer funding. We do this because we will not let the federal government tell us what we are to teach or to whom we will teach it. Every year, this costs millions of dollars in 'free' money. We pay that price, because we have a mission to serve."

It is that mission that Thomas wants to promote.

"I think it's very important for somebody to get the kind of education I got when I was young but is not available much anymore," he said.

He said many institutions focus too much on revisionist history and ethnic studies. He said that point of view has value but must be built upon the foundation of the basics.

"We need to emphasize the Greeks and the Romans and the Europeans - the ones that really got everything started," he said. "All points of view need to be studied but basics are basics. We need to start with a liberal arts education."

Arnn wrote that Hillsdale students are among the top in the nation. He said that of the 1,130 students enrolled this year, 330 are freshmen. Of that group, 11 are National Merit Scholars and nearly 40 percent graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

The average high school grade-point-average for the freshmen is 3.56, their average ACT score is 26 and average SAT score is 1220.

For more information about the scholarship, contact Sue Maples in the guidance department of Carson High School at 885-6520.