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THE FOOTHILLS FOCUS | THEFOOTHILLSFOCUS.COM | FEBRUARY 23, 2022
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Desert Forest Golf Club caddy wins scholarship BY BRENDAN MAU Foothills Focus Staff Writer
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eremy Dreher has been golfing since sixth grade and started caddying his sophomore year of high school at Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree. “I’ve always had passion for golf. My dad introduced me to caddying sophomore year (after getting an) email from the Junior Golf Association of Arizona, asking players to start having a Desert Forest (job),” Dreher said. “He called me up in the middle of fourth hour, and I was like, ‘OK, sweet, I’ll do it.’ And then went up two weeks later, did the training and it was all history from there.” After a lot of hard work, two years later, Dreher, a student at Moon Valley High School in Phoenix, has become the second consecutive recipient from Desert Forest Golf Club of the Chick Evans Scholarship, a full, four-year tuition and housing college scholarship after a lengthy application process. “I got the scholarship on Christmas Eve. So, you can probably say that was the best Christmas present ever.” “When we got the letter in the mail, I was just ecstatic and called my parents up, they were at work. But I was just really excited and happy when we got the letter in the mail. When I opened it and it said ‘Congratulations, you got the scholarship,’ it was one of those moments where you almost just dropped down to the floor.
It was a pretty awesome experience.” The Evans Scholars Foundation “seeks students who show academic strength, financial need, outstanding character and a strong caddie record” for the scholarship, according to the Western Golf Association, which supports the foundation. This year, around 300 students were awarded the prestigious scholarship, which is valued at over $120,000 for four years. Dreher has applied to Penn State University and the University of Colorado, and he will use the scholarship for his education at one of the schools. He would prefer to attend Colorado and plans to major in accounting and finance. The scholarship was always on Dreher’s mind once he heard about it from his caddy masters and was his “biggest motivating factor” to continue caddying. He added that he has learned a lot from the past caddy it was given to from Desert Forest. “When I was in my training, the former scholarship recipient, Evan Johnson, he was one of my biggest inspirations because I saw that he was applying for the scholarship, and he was a go-getter. And so, that just made me want to excel,” Dreher said. “Since Evan was the first recipient in Arizona, it kind of gave me a window to think like, ‘hey, you know what, if he can do it, I can do it.’” Desert Forest Golf Club is a 45-minute drive for Dreher, but he was
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