Shorter College Receives Gift to Endow Knight Performers’ Scholarship

Shorter College President Harold E. Newman announced Monday evening that the Charles and Carole Lamar Fund of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation has made a $25,000 gift toward the endowment of the William and Mary Ann Knight Scholarship Competition. In addition to this gift, the foundation has issued a challenge grant, promising to match all additional amounts raised by the college up to $37,500. Through other friends, the college has raised to date $11,810, and the Charles and Carole Lamar Fund has matched this amount, bringing the total current amount of the endowed competition to $48,620. The Lamar Fund’s gifts and challenge seeks to bring the total raised to $100,000.

Mrs. Lamar is the niece of Mr. Knight, retired Distinguished Professor of Piano at Shorter. In announcing the gift, she said, “We are happy to have the opportunity to participate in this scholarship in honor of Bill and Mary Ann Knight, two teachers who have positively changed the lives of so many students.”

The Knights both taught piano at Shorter College for more than 40 years. Mr. Knight retired in 2004; Mrs. Knight, still an active member of the music faculty, is in her 42 nd year at Shorter.

The Lamar Fund’s contributions will endow future scholarships; they also gave an additional $2,500 to fund the scholarships that were awarded during the Monday, March 5, competition, Dr. Newman announced.

Shorter College music majors compete each year in the Knight Performers’ Competition, vying for one of two scholarships awarded. There are two rounds of competition with two different panels of judges. The final round, which is open to the public, features finalists in both keyboard and voice; the winners are announced at the end of the evening’s event. The 2007 winners are Jonathan Easter in the keyboard competition and Andrew McLeod in the voice competition. Easter, a Roswell, Ga., native, is a junior majoring in organ performance and church music. He is a student of Dr. Peter DeWitt. A Calhoun, Ga., native, McLeod is a junior voice performance major. He studies voice with Dr. Linda Lister.

Pictured from left to right are: Dr. Harold E. Newman, president of Shorter College; Jonathan Easter, winner of the 2007 keyboard competition; Andrew McLeod, winner of the 2007 voice competition; and William and Mary Ann Knight.

“We are pleased by this generous support by the Lamar Fund of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and hope that the many friends of music in our community will help us by responding to the challenge grant,” said Dr. Robert Shippey, Shorter’s vice president for institutional advancement. “Every dollar we receive will be matched by this foundation, so friends who love music and who have benefited from the Knights’ years in Rome have an opportunity to give and have their gift matched. Through such generous support, the Knight Competition will continue to sustain the quality of talent that is the hallmark of the Shorter College School of the Arts.”

Contributions to the William and Mary Ann Knight Performers’ Scholarship may be sent to the Shorter College Office of Institutional Advancement, Campus Box 28, 315 Shorter Avenue, Rome, GA 30165.