Although he worked just a short time in his chosen field before a car accident took his life just over 20 years ago, Stephen's enthusiasm for his career lives on today. The Stephen Ashby Carpenter Memorial Scholarship started by his family continues to help Norfolk Public School counselors gain additional education.
After Stephen died Emily and Tom Carpenter, Stephen's mom and dad, set up a scholarship fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Memorial donations from friends, colleagues and family helped build the permanent endowment in his name.
The Carpenter Scholarship has helped numerous counselors over the years. April 1 is the
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| Stephen Carpenter's passion was helping Norfolk students. |
Stephen Carpenter was just 25 years old and working as a guidance counselor at Azalea Gardens Middle School when he died in November 1993. He had just started at the school a few months earlier. Ironically, one of his first accomplishments was setting up a grief program for students having no idea they would need it so soon.
Stephen's family knew how hard the Hampden-Sydney College graduate had worked to earn his master's degree in counseling at Regent University while teaching French in a Norfolk middle school. That's one reason they chose to start a scholarship to help guidance counselors like Stephen gain additional education and skills.
The first Carpenter Scholarship recipient in 1996 was Dr. Reuthenia Clark, who was a guidance counselor at Azalea Garden Middle when she was selected. Today she is principal of the same school and credits the Carpenter scholarship with helping her complete her master's degree at Columbia University in New York. She went on to earn a doctorate from the University of Virginia.
"I knew I wanted to be somewhere where I could make a difference for students through their teachers," Clark says.
Another early Carpenter Scholarship recipient is Dr. Susan Sigler, the Maury High School guidance counselor in charge of scholarships. "The Carpenter Scholarship opened a world to me," she recalls. "It helped me earn my doctorate.from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale." From there Sigler has gone on to head various programs in the Norfolk school district and also to teach college courses in the area.
(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org.)
