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The Miners’ Scholarship
Mallory Mullins Hubbard ’07 is living proof that donations to the Miners’ Family Scholarship fund at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise change lives and make the region a better place for future generations.
Mallory Hubbard, a 2007 UVa-Wise graduate, was just 15 when her father, surface miner loader operator Kenneth Mullins, passed away at age 46 from melanoma cancer, leaving her mother to raise her and her nine-year-old sister on her own. “We were very fortunate that my mother had always worked and had a very good career with the Social Security Administration,” she said. “However, because she worked her entire adult life, she made just above the average income limit for my sister and I to receive any financial assistance from the federal government for college.” That’s where the Miners’ Family Scholarship stepped in to help. “While an undergraduate student at UVa-Wise, I was fortune enough to have applied for and received the Miners’ Family Scholarship,” Hubbard said. “This scholarship, along with a couple of others, enabled me to receive a superb education and graduate completely debt free.” Hubbard graduated from UVa-Wise with Cum Laude honors in business administration, was the junior class homecoming representative, and served on UVa-Wise’s SGA for two years. “Since graduating UVa-Wise, I have obtained my master’s in business administration and I work in the corporate office of Eastman Chemical, a Fortune 500 company,” Hubbard said. “If not for the Miners’ Family Scholarship, and others, a first generation college student like myself may never get the opportunity to attend college due to the increasing cost of tuition. I know that if my dad were here today, he would love to know that all those years spent on a strip-mine enabled his daughters to attend college years after his passing, and because of the Miners’ Family Scholarship you helped make his dream a reality, and I am forever grateful.”
Mallory Mullins Hubbard ’ 07 p The Miners’ Family Scholarship fund was endowed by the UVa-Wise Alumni Association in 1987. It is for needy and worthy students with financial needs who are coal miners or a miner’s dependent. Priority is given to miners who are unemployed, disabled, or retired. A miner is defined as anyone who has been employed in the Southwest Virginia mining industry for at least five years. These five years need not be consecutive. Recipients are chosen by the Office of Financial Aid. Any student may apply for the Miners’ Family Scholarship by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as well as the Miners’ Family Scholarship application.
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