VGCC Scholarship will honor retiring Economic Development director
Members of the Granville Industrial and Business Club have endowed a new scholarship at Vance-Granville Community College in honor of Leon Turner, the retiring executive director of the Granville County Economic Development Commission. VGCC President Randy Parker surprised Turner with news of the scholarship’s creation at a June 20 reception in honor of Turner’s retirement at Thorndale Country Club in Oxford. Parker said that under Turner’s leadership, the Granville Industrial and Business Club has contributed $75,000 to the VGCC Endowment Fund and Scholarship Program. Turner became the county’s economic development director in 1997.
At the reception, Parker was the last of several speakers who expressed their appreciation to Turner. Parker praised the “legacy of leadership” that Turner will leave to Granville County and thanked him and the GIBC for their commitment to VGCC. “For years to come, students and their families will benefit from Leon’s support of Vance-Granville,” Parker said. Like all GIBC scholarships, the Leon Turner Presidential Scholar Award will be awarded each year to a deserving student at the college.
Turner said that he was “deeply humbled” by the event and by the scholarship, which he looks forward to presenting this fall at the college’s annual scholarship ceremony. “To be a part of anything at Vance-Granville is an honor,” Turner said. “VGCC is a treasure, one of the outstanding institutions in the state, and I say that everywhere I go.”
The new scholarship will add to the more than 5,000 VGCC scholarships awarded since 1982, which have been funded by interest earned on the Endowment Fund and Scholarship Program. With assets of more than $6 million, VGCC has one of the largest community college endowment and scholarship funds in the state. Tax-deductible donations to the VGCC Endowment Fund have often been used to honor or remember a person, group, business or industry with a lasting gift to education.
Above: VGCC President Randy Parker (left) congratulates Leon Turner on having a scholarship established in his honor at the college by the Granville Industrial and Business Club. (VGCC photo)
