Alma Saylor Sandefur Scholarship

Alma Saylor Sandefur

In the spring of 1986 Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Thompson, with the help of their daughter, Renee Edwards Sensabaugh, established a scholarship in memory of Mr. Thompson's grandmother. The Alma Saylor Sandefur Business Scholarship is a tribute to Mrs. Alma Sandefur who was a guiding force behind her children's education.

Although she never went beyond the fourth grade herself, she was committed to Christian higher education. In 1920, she and her husband, R.J., moved to Keene so their three youngest children could attend Southwestern Junior College. Her son, Cree, remembered she was so determined that her children have an education that she took her boys into hot cotton fields and worked with them for three or four weeks at a time to earn money for tuition and clothes. Her persistence and determination paid off. Today, well over a dozen of Mrs. Sandefur's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alumni of Southwestern Adventist University. The Alma Saylor Sandefur Business Scholarship is awarded yearly to a business major on the basis of scholastic ability and exhibited potential.