Owsley County Schools honors seniors with scholarships and awards

Makelle Heard won the 2026 William Eversole Scholarship and will attend Morehead State University in the fall, while Brayden Peters was named the 2026 Ray & Edna Gumm Scholarship recipient as Owsley County’s Class of 2026 moved through graduation season. For Booneville families, those are not just end-of-year honors. They are the kind of awards that can turn senior year into a funded first step toward college.

The district’s June 23 live feed had already framed the class in that light, saying Owsley County Schools recognized some seniors with scholarships, awards and honors and calling them part of the district’s Parliament of Excellence. Owsley County High School also marked the stretch with a Senior Breakfast sponsored by the Owsley Co. Ministerial Association and a Senior Signing Day at the Owsley County Public Library, showing how graduation season in Booneville has become a public effort that runs through the school, local churches and the library.

The clearest dollar figure tied to Owsley’s scholarship tradition came in last year’s William Eversole awards, when Isaiah Hinson and Dominick Hollan were each selected to receive $2,500 per semester for four academic years, a total of $20,000 apiece if the scholarship runs the full eight semesters. Isaiah planned to major in engineering at Eastern Kentucky University, and Dominick also planned to attend EKU, giving the county a concrete example of how a local scholarship can open the door to a high-skill field without forcing a student to leave the region behind academically.

That is the practical measure for this senior class. Makelle Heard’s move to Morehead State and the earlier EKU commitments show Owsley County Schools pushing graduates toward degrees that can feed back into the county’s workforce and civic life, the same outcome the district says it wants when it talks about preparing students for college or career success and civic success. For Owsley families, the awards matter because they are tuition help, college entry points and a visible signal that Booneville is still producing students with a next step.