Vienna student surprised with more than $100K in scholarship funds

VIENNA Ill. (KBSI) – A young man from Illinois received more than $100,000 in scholarship funds to attend Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

Cambell Douglas, also known as ‘Soup,’ by his classmates, is a senior at Vienna High School who has worked tirelessly his entire school career to achieve straight A’s.

But Monday’s event was a complete surprise to Douglas and his classmates, as he was told they were going to talk about dual credit courses.

“And that’s what I thought was going into it. My class usually gets pulled out because it’s easy to pull us out and we’re great students, but then it turned out to be me being given a hundred and four thousand dollars, so yeah, I’m ecstatic,” Douglas said.

Every year there are millions of dollars from scholarships not being utilized due to students not applying or they get caught in the obstacles of the process.

“So, some things here at Vienna High School that we try to do, we eliminate as many of those hurdles as we possibly can,” said Joshua Stafford, superintendent of Vienna School District.

The Chancellors Scholarship is for academic achievement and pays for tuition, mandatory fees, and food and housing for four years.

Setting his sights high with intentions of going into agriculture, Douglas has dreams of continuing the legacy of running his family farm.