Pat Brown
Contributing Writer
Rhonda Burch could not have known she was starting a family tradition when she applied for a Ruritan scholarship to help her get a college degree.
Her three children have followed in her footsteps, all garnering Ruritan and other scholarships to help offset some of their college expenses.
It all started back when Rhonda Burch was in high school. She wasn’t really aware that the local Ruritans had been awarding scholarship since the mid-1980’s to deserving Blacksburg students.
Burch’s uncle, the late Rador Vaden, was Ruritan through and through and his Mount Tabor Road chapter famously the community hopping with fund raising projects that support scholarships: making apple butter in the fall and holding pancake breakfasts and fish-fry dinners all summer.
Her uncle asked Rhonda about applying for one of the $500 scholarships Ruritan offers annually and his question opened a door for his niece.
“He showed me an opportunity,” she said. That opportunity pointed her in the direction of seeking scholarships and it was a lesson she would later teach her children.
Rhonda Burch won one of those $500 Ruritan scholarships and used it to help start a career path that took her from Virginia Western Community College to Virginia Tech. She earned a business management degree then returned to graduate school for certification as a vocational educator. After another series of courses, she landed her current position as librarian at Margaret Beeks Elementary School.
She married Quintin Burch (who had gone to Tech for a time on an athletic scholarship), and when their oldest child, Justin, expressed a desire to go to college, “We knew we would figure a way,” Burch said. Justin Burch’s first scholarship helped him attend New River.
“He worked the entire time and paid most of his own education,” said Rhonda Burch. “I couldn’t be more proud of him.” Justin, a graduate of Dayspring Christian Academy, also received other scholarships, including one from NRCC Foundation, another scholarship he and his mother have in common.
Her younger two children are ambitious, too.
“Their love of soccer was very helpful,” Rhonda Burch said, “and they were also academic.”
By the time she graduated from BHS in 2018, Ashlen had accumulated a year of college by successfully taking dual-enrollment classes. Ashlen plans to be a nurse when she graduates from Milligan College in Tennessee in 2022. She works as an assistant in the school’s bookstore and plays soccer for Milligan.
Jordan Burch, also a student at Milligan, will join Ashlen as the two participate in a study abroad program in May, taking classes in Spain, Greece and Italy. He will graduate in 2020 and has been aided by a work-study job at Milligan’s communications department as well as a soccer scholarship.
Jeananne Dixon-Bame has chaired Ruritan’s scholarship committee for the past six years. She makes sure scholarship information is printed in school publications and applications are distributed to guidance offices.
She said her committee often does not know the young people they are considering. They are guided by school transcripts, test scores, teacher recommendations, community service records.
The Burches did not get their scholarships because of their uncle’s prominence in the Ruritan Club, Dixon-Bame said, but because of their own merits.
“All three had remarkable lists of community service,” Dixon-Bame said.
Burch had special advice to teens who will be needing financial help for college. “You can’t wait until your senior year” to start researching scholarships she warned.
When she thought about how she transitioned from a business degree to her current job of running a K-5 library, Rhonda Burch credited her children’s teachers.
“I was inspired by some of the incredible teachers my children had,” she said. They “nurtured my children and made them excited about learning.”
The club awarded eight $500 scholarships last year and this year’s scholarship applications are all turned in. Dixon-Bame’s committee is studying them to see which students will be awarded a $500 boost.
