Local high schoolers awarded Ryan Clark Memorial Scholarship

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – It’s been 15 years since a gunman killed Lakeside graduate Ryan Clark in the Virginia Tech mass shooting.

He died trying to save someone else’s life, and every day, his family works to raise money in his memory to help with scholarships for students in our area.

Thursday night, the Ryan Clark Foundation held its annual scholarship banquet to award scholarships to three students. We spoke with Clarks’s mom about the scholarship and her son.

According to the nonprofit gunviolence.org, we’ve seen 210 mass shootings in 2023. Clark’s mother says it all hits too close to home.

“When you hear that, it sends you back. You never get over it because you know, another parent’s heart is broken for a lifetime. So I am so ready for people to stop talking and start doing,” said Letitie Clark.

Action is what Letitie wants to see to stop what she calls senseless gun violence. And by giving back to students in the community, she hopes to be the change while honoring her son.

“Bad things do happen, but you can make something good, come out of something bad,” she said.

This year’s scholarship recipients received a total of $3,500 to support their college education.

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Recipient Brooklyn Oliber said: “It feels great. I’m shocked honestly. Like I just do community service just because it makes me feel happy to help others. But I’m honored to have been chosen as the recipient of the scholarship.”

Community service, willingness to help others, and positivity. They’re the characteristics of Ryan Clark and the foundation of how scholarship recipients are chosen.

It’s these characteristics Oliber says she hopes put an end to gun violence.

“I hope that through this scholarship and through remembering the lives lost and rather than remembering what happened in like in place of what happened, that will promote positivity and hopefully be able to stop this forever,” she said.

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