Home NORTH LAMAR ISD Jay Hoskins Memorial Scholarship awarded || Local Marines make presentation

Jay Hoskins Memorial Scholarship awarded || Local Marines make presentation

by MyParisTexas
0 comment

Retired Gunnery Sgt. John O’Donnell and representatives of the Marine Corps League presented North Lamar High School senior Brooke Collard the Sgt. Jay M. Hoskins Scholarship during a presentation Friday morning in the school library.

Collard submitted an essay entitled “The Sacrifice of the American Service Member” in which she described how with a blink of an eye the sudden death of Sergeant Jay Hoskins forever changed her family.  A third-grader at the time of Hoskins’ death and relative of the family, Collard said, “28,000 blinks in a day and anything could happen.  One blink you’re here and the next you’re not.  Sergeant Hoskins enlisted in the military knowing the risks he would have to take and the sacrifices he and his family would have to make.” 

The Marine Corps League established the $1,000 scholarship in 2018 to honor Sgt. Hoskins and as a way to give back to the community.  Hoskins graduated from North Lamar High School in 2003 and died as a result of a roadside bomb in 2009 while serving in Afghanistan.

“We decided it was important to give back to the students within the school that he graduated prior to becoming a Marine,” said O’Donnell during the presentation. 

Sgt. Hoskins mother, Michelle Widner, and her husband, Chris, took part in the selection process and attended the presentation for Collard.

Related Articles