The Atlantic Rural Exposition Inc. is a private, not-for-profit Virginia corporation which has been in existence since 1946. It is a year-round facility that has over 1.5 million people who come on our grounds yearly. We are the landlord for Richmond International Raceway. We lease our facilities to corporations, expositions and shows. We are the home of the 10,000-capacity Classic Amphitheatre. We produce a Highland Games and Celtic Festival and the Strawberry Hill Steeplechase Races, but our flagship is the State Fair of Virginia. We are charged by our Board of Directors with the mission of promoting youth, education and agriculture. Bearing that in mind, we not only are a partner with the schools of Virginia, we help facilitate and promote education throughout the business community in Virginia. Stretching our horizons, we not only reward youth participation at the fair with ribbons, we now offer scholarship opportunities. This Scholarship Program offers encouragement and financial support to students across the Commonwealth.

Let me give you a little background on our scholarship program. In 1988, the Atlantic Rural Exposition began searching for a more productive method to recognize youth achievement. It seemed counterproductive to give children cash for participation in certain programs when we had an opportunity to do much more. We were not comfortable with the results of our programs, especially in the livestock areas. Our credibility was on the line. We had to make dramatic changes. We felt that we had to set an example legally and morally for the youth of Virginia.

In doing this, we determined that our livestock shows had become an entertainment vehicle for our customers, rather than an educational tool. Recognizing the need to enhance ethical behavior and encourage proper animal care, we took the big money premiums away and established our scholarship program. We wanted to ensure that the winning exhibitors, not parents, not professional fitters, would benefit from their hard work and dedication.

This presented us with a major challenge. Making this change was tedious and time consuming. Bearing in mind that it was going to be difficult to introduce this new concept to the youth leaders, we were careful to take the scholarship changes in steps. First, we started with our market livestock competitions, then expanded to judging competitions. In 1995, over 5,000 young people competed in areas of competition at the State Fair and 84 scholarships were awarded. Scholarship programs ranged from livestock to forestry to computer graphics. Our Board of Directors is the chief fund raiser for the scholarship program and has established a goal of awarding $500,000 per year in scholarships to participants at the State Fair of Virginia by 2000.

The following goals were established to make the State Fair a working partner with the business and educational community:

* Stimulate interest, recognize achievement and promote higher education at an impressionable age.

* Establish a mentor program with participating schools and members of the community.

* Involve community participation throughout Virginia at the State Fair.

* Increase attendance and enhance recognition of competition participants at the State Fair of Virginia.

The first unique aspect of the State Fair Scholarship program is that it focuses on students, age 11 to 14, those that have not gotten into GBC’s (girls, boys, cars). By providing a student at this age the opportunity to earn a scholarship, the odds are favorable for getting them hooked on education. They are inquisitive about new concepts, activities, and issues. They are still open to influences about careers and the need for continual learning.

The middle school State Fair programs provide urban youth the opportunity to participate in agriculture related projects, and compete at the Fair like their country cousins, with the potential to earn scholarships. This assists in connecting their minds to agriculture, education, and rural-urban activities.

The second unique aspect of the program is that resources are focused on youth and their education, not the project. The project is only a vehicle for learning toward the development of young people.

Students must be accepted in a post-secondary educational institution to actually receive the scholarship funds. This creates an atmosphere where universities have an interest in the student. The Scholarship program becomes a source of revenue and students for universities. The universities are involved in the State Fair program. They enter the 11-year-old scholarship winner in their recruitment network. Consider the impact on a student receiving letters from 12 university presidents informing them about their school, while congratulating them on their achievement. Nothing rings with more impact to a youth and his family than for a college president to tell them they are valuable, successful and wanted. This program provides a recruitment tool for Virginia agriculture and the universities. We have numerous stories of families who have never had members attend college or have not even thought about the issue until they received their scholarship.

The next part of the scholarship program is for our staff to visit county School Board meetings where the student winners attend school. This gives us the opportunity to recognize the student and their parents in front of their peers and to promote the programs. This has greatly increased community involvement at the Fair.

Scholarships are awarded to State Fair competition winners to continue their education at a college, university, vocational, or trade school. Students earn scholarships in designated competitions through an established point system. Point values are determined annually. Points can be accrued from year to year. Upon graduation, points are converted into scholarship moneys and paid directly to the institutions where students are enrolled and attending.

The scholarship program and associated point system can be demonstrated with Junior Market Beef. The top place beef project receives an awarded of 30 points. This can be the grand champion with the next place being 25 points to the reserve champion. Class winners are also awarded scholarships in numerous programs. Also, in some programs we have broken the classes into Junior and Senior division. A variable points system can recognize as many competitors as is desirable. At the end of each year we review the value and relationship of each program and their assigned points for equity among projects.

The per point value for the Grand Champion Beef project can be $100 per point or $1,000 per point. The student’s account who has the 30 points for the Grand Champion Beef Project can be credited with $3,000 or $30,000 or any other value. These levels reflect the ability of the volunteers to raise money for youth scholarships and the Foundation.

For those of you in the Midwest, who are accustomed to dealing in large scholarships, you can recognize students with large dollar values per point or you can recognize a large number of students with lower values per point.

We also have a system of valuing programs and projects so that the point values are relative to each other. When an 11 or 12-year-old youth earns scholarship points for a particular program, we find they become involved in and compete in other areas that require more effort the following years, thus increasing their possibility of earning more total scholarship points.

The criteria for competitions include the enhancement of the student’s education, creditability, integrity and personal skills. This has been our primary objective from the beginning and the reason we have been cautious in program expansion. The youth of today will be tomorrow’s labor force. The State Fair of Virginia programs promote pride, responsibility and values to youth as they progress in their education and into the community.