What to Know
- A scholarship set up at one Miami-Dade school aims at helping those first generation students looking to go to college.
A scholarship set up at one Miami-Dade school aims at helping those first generation students looking to go to college – while honoring a former student who reached that potential and more while working as the press secretary for Gov. Rick Scott.
Scott was at Miami Beach High School on Thursday to announce the scholarship named after Jeri Bustamante, a graduate of the school who was the first in her family to go to college after moving from Panama.
The 33-year-old who worked closely with the Governor died in a boating accident in the Florida Keys this past April, leaving behind her family – including her husband, Anthony – and her dream of one day working as the press secretary for the White House.
“Everyone, she met she built them up. There wasn’t a mean bone in her body,” her widower said during the ceremony. “The only way she would achieve her American dream, a little Panamanian girl, would be through an education. She was relentless, relentless.”
Scott said a student must write an essay on what it means to live the American Dream as well as be a part of the 2019 graduating class at the school.
“There’s no requirement for GPA or test scores because we want the scholarship to be available or anyone trying to live the American Dream,” Scott said while accompanied by his wife, Ann, and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.
“She was a consummate professional and what she did, and she gained the respect of everybody in the governor’s office,” Lopez-Cantera added.
The scholarship will pay for four years at any college or university in the state of Florida.
