Demorest, GA – While a senior at Winder-Barrow High School, Alex Childers was looking for three things in a college. He wanted a small college not too far from home, he wanted to study business, and he wanted the opportunity to play baseball.
Childers decided that Piedmont fit that bill, and it did not hurt that as Winder-Barrow’s top academic graduate, he also qualified as the first recipient of Piedmont’s new Premier Scholarship, which grants full tuition to Georgia high school valedictorians.
This year Piedmont will provide students with in-house scholarships worth more than $9 million, but the Premier Scholarship is special, said Cindy Peterson, Dean of Admissions and Undergraduate Enrollment Management. “This is our first scholarship program specifically designed for valedictorians,” Peterson said. “Along with our other programs, including the Camp-Younts, Trustees, and Presidential scholarships, Piedmont each year has been able to attract more and more academically talented students. For the current freshman class, the average GPA is now 3.44. We think the Premier Scholarship is an important addition because it tells the best students in Georgia that they have a place at Piedmont.”
Dr. Perry Rettig, Vice President for Academic Affairs, agreed that the Premier Scholarship can have a big impact for Georgia top students. “With Piedmont’s exceptional liberal arts heritage, our students graduate with the intellectual attributes and skill sets required of today’s global citizens. Alex and an increasing number of his classmates are today’s scholars and tomorrow’s community leaders.”
Childers was not only valedictorian at Winder-Barrow with a GPA of 4.0, he also was the senior class STAR student, an honor given to the student with the highest SAT score. While in high school, he was a member of the National Honor Society, Science National Honor Society, Spanish National Honor Society, Beta Club, and the Academic Bowl team. And he accomplished all of this while playing baseball for the Bulldogs for four years.
Now a freshman at Piedmont, Childers said the experience has lived up to his expectations. “I enjoy the small classes,” he said. “With one exception, all my classes have 15 students or less. I am majoring in business, but have not decided which concentration to take, whether accounting, finance, or marketing. I am also trying to make the baseball team, and we practice four or five hours a day, so it keeps me busy.”
