Lydia Palmer will graduate this month with a future in health care and serving others in mind. A first-generation college student, Palmer’s Campbell journey was made possible, in large part, by the financial support she received through the Lettie Pate Whitehead Scholarship.
Campbell President Dr. J. Bradley Creed shared a letter written by Palmer to the Whitehead Foundation during a recent speech, highlighting the nearly 70-year partnership between the organization and the University in helping young women achieve their dreams of a four-year degree. In her letter, Palmer — who’ll graduate with a degree in biology with a pre-med concentration and chemistry minor — said the scholarship “played an essential role in helping me achieve both my academic and career goals.”
“It alleviated a significant amount of financial stress,” she said. “I was able to continue to complete my undergraduate education with a greater peace of mind and a stronger commitment to my future.”
Four years ago, Palmer was considering Campbell and UNC Wilmington, a public school closer to her hometown. She chose Campbell because of scholarships and financial aid packages the university offered. She said her experience in Buies Creek affirmed her decision, as she got a lot out of the smaller class sizes and relationships with her professors.
“It made a difference not having all my classes in giant lecture halls with professors who don’t even know your name,” she said. “I came from a bigger high school that had more than 2,000 students, so having that smaller atmosphere was extremely helpful.”
Palmer said she’s eyeing medical school or a medical research graduate program in the near future. Her passion for health care started in middle school, she said, after learning about a young girl who battled leukemia and was saved thanks to innovations in immunotherapy that harnessed the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells.
A few years later, Palmer was a sophomore in high school when her aunt was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma — a battle she ultimately lost. Palmer’s visits to the hospital and seeing the doctors and nurses care for her aunt strengthened her will to one day become a doctor.
“My aunt inspired me to want to help people like her,” whether that’s in a hospital or in a lab, she said.
For the past 69 years, the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation has been providing annual grants for the education of deserving young women at accredited educational institutions across the Southeast. Today, the Lettie Pate Whitehead Scholarship is awarded to female students with financial need at 195 schools including Campbell University, which was one of the 29 originally involved institutions when the scholarship was launched for schools in 1954.
Since then, the foundation has granted more than $54 million in scholarships to students at Campbell.
The foundation is named in honor of renowned businesswoman and philanthropist Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans (1874-1953), wife of Joseph B. Whitehead, who found great wealth as one of the original bottlers of Coca-Cola. She took over the bottling business and real estate interests after her husband’s death and became one of the first female directors of any major American corporation when she was appointed to the board of the company in 1934. She gave generously to educational institutions throughout her life.
The Lettie Pate Foundation awards “need-based” scholarships. Many of the recipients fall into that category by way of growing up in a single-parent or foster household, growing up with financial hardships, or having some other circumstances.
“Not only did the scholarship relieve some of my financial burden, it made me want to give back in the future also,” Palmer said. “The GPA requirements also motivated me to keep up my GPA over the four years.”