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Sparks family announces scholarship winners for 2021

Gracie Milner poses with Brenda Sparks McCleerey and Jim Sparks. [PATRICK SULLIVAN/Hendersonville Lightning]

By Lightning Reports, Published: June 12, 2021

Gracie Milner won a four-year $20,000 scholarship and David Orihuela-Rio was awarded a $5,000 grant when the Sparks Family and Connie & Ricky Sparks Scholarship Foundation was announced at Hendersonville High School's annual Move Up assembly on May 28.

David Orihuela-Rio poses with Brenda Sparks McCleerey and Jim Sparks. [PATRICK SULLIVAN/Hendersonville Lightning]Milner will enroll at UNC at Chapel Hill and Orihuela-Rio will attend Blue Ridge Community College.

This marked the 14th year the Sparks family has awarded the Connie & Ricky Sparks Memorial Scholarship, which totals $235,000 awarded to outstanding and deserving HHS graduates.

To help celebrate the HHS Class of 2021 and all they endured in their junior and senior years, Jim Sparks and Brenda Sparks McCleerey were joined by new and past scholarship winners Lane Hefner and Tameron Hill (2016), Shayna Scott (2012), Jack Carr (2020), Gracie Miler (2021), Angelo Castillo (2020), David Orihuela- Rio (2021), Sidney Brown (2019) and Kat Kilpatrick Chrisholm (2010).