2022 Don & Sybil Harrington Scholarship Recipients

The Foundation would like to congratulate the (9) 2022 recipients of the Don & Sybil Harrington Scholarship! Each year this prestigious, 4-year, $20,000 scholarship is given to Lubbock County High School students pursuing their education in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, or Engineering.

The Don & Sybil Harrington Scholarship is intended to provide significant scholarship support for Lubbock County’s best and brightest students both now and for generations to come! The Don & Sybil Harrington Scholarship Endowment was established at the Community Foundation of West Texas in late 2006 with a gift of $3 million. Since its inception, the Community Foundation of West Texas has awarded 94 scholarships totaling more than $1.7 million!

Don and Sybil Harrington embodied the independent and adventurous spirit of the American West. She was the granddaughter of one of the first families to settle Amarillo. He moved west after serving in the Army Air Corps during World War I. Educated as an engineer at Yale University, he took a position with Marlin Oil Company in Oklahoma. When the Texas Panhandle oil boom hit in 1926, Harrington moved to Amarillo, where he met Sybil Buckingham. They married in 1935 and went on to build one of the most successful independent oil and gas operations in Texas history. The Harrington legacy of philanthropy is far-reaching but rooted in the Texas Panhandle. Over many years, the Harrington name has become synonymous with successful charitable, educational, and cultural endeavors.

Olivia Chen - Lubbock High School

• Princeton University

• Chemical Engineering

• "I see myself working at a National Lab, leading the development of new technologies that turn buzzwords like “pollution” and “carbon footprint” into relevant and tangible solutions that are a part of the puzzle to a more sustainable future. As environmental issues continue to become more pressing, continued innovation is necessary to make the world a healthier place."

Braden Chilcutt - Monterey High School

• Texas Tech University

• Computer Science

• "With a rise in technological advances in the car industry, I have realized that I want to use my degree to improve the safety of vehicles. Tens of thousands of people die in car accidents every year, many of which would be preventable with smarter cars."

Mikeal Graham - Lubbock High School

• Rice University

• Astrophysics

• "One thing I’ve found is that when I imagine myself in the future I can imagine no better life than the one I will build with an Astrophysics degree. Although I had a rocky beginning to my STEM education, I never let my background stifle my fascination with outer-space. I have big dreams to study cosmology, participate in a James Webb research program, and one day work my way up to working for Blue Origin."

Tyler Kim - Lubbock High School

• University: Undecided

• Biology

• "A question that children are often asked is what they want to be when they grow up. As for myself, what I want to do is set in stone; I know I want to become a medical researcher...Looking into the specifics, I wish to tackle the problem of Alzheimer’s Disease. Why Alzheimer’s? On the paternal side of my family, there is a history of cancer around the throat; my great grandfather passed away from laryngeal cancer, and my grandfather has battled through tonsil cancer, having undergone multiple surgeries."

Noah Morales - Lubbock Cooper High School

• University of Michigan

• Neuroscience

• "My ultimate career goal is to become a physician. I would like to pursue a career in pediatrics. I specifically would like to become a pediatric behavioral developmental specialist in order to help families with children on the autism spectrum and other intellectual disabilities."

Nihil Nandakumar - Lubbock High School

• Purdue University

• Aerospace Engineering

• "Following my university education, I wish to pursue a career with an aeronautics company. Facilitated through my education, the scope of my work should be centered around commercial aviation as my desire is for my work to reach the widest range of people possible. Being able to share the feat of aviation with the world is the ultimate goal of my studies."

Jonathan Wang - Lubbock High School

• Grinnell College

• Statistics

• "I plan to become a research scientist and make an impact at the cutting edge of information-driven scientific and societal advancement...Grinnell has educated so many outstanding scientists and engineers, such as Intel Corporation co-founder Dr. Robert Noyce and Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Thomas Robert Cech. I will use this rich legacy as the motivation to accomplish the same level of career achievement."

Lily Wang - Lubbock High School

• Washington University in St. Louis

• Architecture

• "While lifestyle bloggers often describe Lubbock as the 'most boring city in America', there are many hidden gems around my hometown...By pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, I hope to gain the knowledge and skills to transform historic buildings, cities, civilian lives, and the surrounding environment with the power of adaptive reuse. I am hopeful that one day, adaptive reuse can transform the 'boring' towns like Lubbock into vibrant places to live."

Derek Zhou-Lubbock High School

• University of Texas at Dallas

• Computer Science and Psychology

• "Through college, I hope to be able to secure myself an income in a software engineering position, where I can then make use of my passions and work on various projects: small robots and inventions, video game design and filmmaking...I am also considering double majoring in Psychology...A degree in Psychology can then let me help people who are often overlooked - people with mental health issues, especially men and minority groups. While my technical skills lie in computer science and robotics, I would like to be able to leverage my interpersonal skills to try and help people more effectively than software engineering."