44 Years of Scholars

Powered by a generous church and a community’s commitment to education, the Conkle-Rowe Scholarship has enriched the opportunities of worthy young minds.

In the 44 years since the inception of the Church of the Good Shepherd’s no one thought it would grow to be what it is today.

That includes the 95-year-old co-founder and now chair emeritus, Pat Rowe. The scholarship was started by Henry Conkle in 1979 and reconstituted as the Conkle-Rowe Scholarship after Pat’s twenty-two-year tenure. The scholarship program has helped over 110 scholars realize their two- or four-year college dreams.

This year was very special as Pat celebrated her 95th birthday on June 8, and the scholarship fund turned 44. The Conkle-Rowe Committee and church decided this would be the perfect year to kick off a Founder’s Day Weekend! Over 200 scholars, family guests, donors, and church parishioners celebrated the milestone weekend events in June.

As Pat proclaimed before the festivities, “let’s make sure these celebrations are about the kids, and not about me.”

And so, we did, with just one small candle on the cake for Pat. The Conkle-Rowe Founder’s Day Weekend events were a team effort, and all of the events were self-funded by donors so as not to take away any scholarship money!

Currently, the scholarship fund supports over 30 active scholars from five area high schools attending thirteen different local and regional community colleges and universities. The scholarship’s mission, “Believe In Youth, Invest In Their Future,” was adopted by the church in 2019 as part of the church’s Bazaar Barn and Outreach growth efforts.

by Kevin Rowland

The Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC recently organized an event aimed at tackling the pressing issue of early childhood education in the region. This event featured a presentation by Elizabeth Byrum, Senior Policy Analyst for Early Childhood Education from NC Child. Byrum shed light on the state of early childhood education in North Carolina by covering critical topics like funding sources, successful partnerships, key statistics, and ongoing policy initiatives. The gathering of community leaders, businesses, and childcare providers provided a platform for essential discussions and aimed to foster collaboration in addressing the childcare crisis.

“There’s a need for collective efforts to alleviate the challenges faced in Highlands,” says Kaye McHan, executive director of the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC. “The childcare crisis affects us all.”

A snapshot of early education in North Carolina:

• There are 710,000 children in the state age birth to five years old, representing 31.6% of children under 18 years of age.

• 65 percent of children birth to five years of age live in households where both parents work.

• As of May 2023, 225,614 children are