2024 Hillsdale Co. FB scholarship recipients annouced

Hillsdale County Farm Bureau is now in its sixth year of offering scholarship awards to outstanding high school seniors offering $500 per recipient. 

Please join us in congratulating Karle Welden and Sydney Fowler as the 2024 Hillsdale County Farm Bureau Scholarship recipients!

Karle is a senior at Hillsdale Academy and has participated in the Jonesville FFA chapter. She plans to attend Michigan State University majoring in Agri-Business. Last fall her focus was on agriculture education, but recently shifted her focus to her passion in marketing, economics, and business. Karle has grown up and has been very involved on her family’s farm in Jonesville. Ultimately Karle has plans to dip into various aspects of agriculture before deciding on her final avenue. 

Sydney is a senior at Reading High School and has participated in the Branch Area Career Center FFA chapter, Kinderhook 4-H club, New Explorers, and the Hillsdale County Junior Livestock Association. She is planning to attend Jackson and Baker focusing on becoming a Veterinary Technician with her degree in Anesthesiology. Sydney has a passion for working with animals and has worked as a farmhand at the BACC Land Lab last summer. 

Both ladies have participated in Hillsdale County Farm Bureau’s Project RED – rural education day – an agriculture field trip for 4th grade students. 

The county farm bureau also would like to thank the scholarship committee for their time and efforts in selecting students for the scholarship: Amber Kohler, Ron Oates, Erin Ladd, and Sam Fether. “We had some amazing applicants this year and we hope to see the application pool continue to grow”, shares County Director Ron Oates. 

Scholarship recipients will receive their first year of membership paid by the county farm bureau and are invited to the County Annual Meeting on September 14th to recognize them before other members of the organization. 

The scholarship program is sponsored in-part by many local organizations that passionately support agriculture-based programs. Community support is key to programs that recognize upcoming agriculture leaders of the future, and it goes without saying that every sponsorship dollar, every volunteer opportunity, and every communication about youth programs makes programs like the scholarship awards possible. The scholarship award program is brought to you by: