2009 Scholarship Winner

11.06.2009

Laura McMillion Wins the 2009 Mike Pence Award for Academic Excellence

Each year, Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. gives the Mike Pence Award for Academic Excellence to an Indiana student who has been homeschooled throughout his or her high school years and plans to attend a four-year college or university. Named after Indiana’s second-district Congressman (a champion of family-related causes like home education), the award is designed to recognize academic excellence within Indiana’s homeschooling community. Since its inception in 1998, the program has provided $52,000 to outstanding homeschooled students to help them further their educational goals. Currently, the award recipient receives $2,000 per year for a total of four years.

Apologia Educational Ministries, Inc. is pleased to announce that this year’s recipient is Laura McMillion, daughter of Jim and Sandy McMillion. Laura has been homeschooled in Franklin, Indiana and has an impressive list of academic accomplishments. She received perfect scores on the English, Math, and Writing portions of the SAT and has already earned in excess of 40 hours of college credit via both AP tests and college attendance while still in high school. As one online instructor quipped, "Laura is truly one of those students who makes you wonder if she has somehow found the secret of the 48-hour day, as she accomplishes so very much, all while keeping a very cheerful manner."

While Laura's academic accomplishments deserve high praise, her servant’s heart makes it clear that the Lord’s hand is on her life. She has gone on a total of six missions trips to both Thailand and Honduras. While in Honduras, she used her Spanish skills (one of four languages she has studied) to teach Bible lessons to children in the small mountain community of Olancho. She plans to study linguistics and international studies at Baylor University so that she may properly understand the needs of the international community. She says that she hopes to be "truly effective, whether God leads me to work in translation with a remote people group or to enter politics and fight for justice for those under brutal regimes across the world."