Florida Tech Names Second Farmer Scholar; She’s #1 West Shore Spring Graduate
MELBOURNE, FLA.—Florida Institute of Technology has named the 2010 recipient of the Farmer Scholars Program. It is Kimberly Day, a senior at West Shore Junior/Senior High School in Melbourne, Fla., who will graduate this May.
At a school known for high achievers, Day is #1 in her class of 139 students. She is a National Merit Commended Scholar and has made many achievements in math and science, including a perfect 800 on her SAT II in Physics and Math II.
“Highly accomplished students such as Kimberly enrich our student body and add additional luster to our university. They may have the desire but not the means to attend here were it not for Mr. Farmer’s generous endowment,” said Florida Tech President Anthony J. Catanese.
Day has participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition for the past seven years. Her FIRST Lego League team, the “Thunderbolts,” won the Director’s Award at the Florida state competition in 2003 and 2004. She was also a member of the FIRST Robotics Team Voltage 386 (Melbourne) from 2006 to 2008. In 2007, she helped the Fuel Cell team from Voltage win the Buckeye Regional First Fuel Cells Founders Award. She was the programmer and coach of the West Shore FIRST Tech Challenge Team from 2008-2010, and mentored a FIRST Lego Robotics team at West Melbourne School for Science, her elementary school.
She was also one of 18 delegates from across Florida selected for the prestigious Florida Governor’s School for Space Science & Technology summer experience at Kennedy Space Center in 2009. This camp inspired her to choose the space program as her topic for her Senior Project at West Shore. This involves writing a research paper, constructing and documenting a tangible product and giving a well-prepared presentation. Her tangible product was a scale model of a Saturn V rocket, which will be donated to the West Melbourne School for Science as an inspiration to future scientists and engineers.
Excelling beyond academics, Day is an accomplished flutist and Filipino folk dancer. She has been the flutist on Sunday services at her Palm Bay church, Our Lady of Grace, for six years, and has performed traditional Filipino folk dances at community events in Brevard since she was 6-years old.
Day will enter Florida Tech this fall majoring in either physics or computer science.
“At Florida Tech I know that I can get a lot of support and advice from the amazing professors who teach there. Every Florida Tech professor that I have talked to has been very helpful, supportive and willing to listen to what I had to say,” said Day.
The Farmer Scholarship program provides a full four-year scholarship to be awarded annually to a Florida resident and high school graduate. Included in the scholarship are all tuition and university fees, a room in Harris Village’s Farmer Hall and the regular university meal plan.
The Farmer Scholars Program began in 2009. Each subsequent fall semester, another incoming student is selected until, by the fourth year, four students will be enrolled at Florida Tech as Farmer scholars.
Additionally, the Farmer Scholar is given a stipend between the junior and senior years for enrichment through Florida Tech’s summer study abroad program at Oxford University.
Phillip W. Farmer, retired chairman, president and chief executive officer of Harris Corp., donated $1.5 million to establish this endowed scholarship.
