Eleventh annual El Dorado Promise Academic Signing scheduled today

EL DORADO — The 11th annual Academic Signing Day, to honor approximately 300 El Dorado High School Promise Scholarship recipients, will begin at 1:30 p.m. today at the EHS Arena. Savvy Shields, the 2017 Miss America, from Fayetteville, will be the keynote speaker.

The El Dorado Promise is a $50 million scholarship gift from Murphy Oil Corp. announced in 2007, to EHS graduates.

The Promise awards every EHS graduate, who has been enrolled in the El Dorado School District since at least ninth grade, a scholarship covering tuition and mandatory fees equal to the highest, in-state, public university rate.

Also present during Academic Signing Day will be Claiborne Deming, Murphy Oil Corp. chairman of the board; Roger Jenkins, chief executive officer of Murphy Oil; El Dorado Mayor Frank Hash; El Dorado School District Superintendent Jim Tucker; EHS Principal Alva Reibe and Sylvia Thompson, director of the El Dorado Promise.

Members of the Academic Signing Day Committee include Alice Mahony and Bonnie Haynie, co-chair, and Allison Parker, Lila Phillips, Scott Reed, Reibe, Katie Sandifer, Thompson, Tucker and Beth Weldon. The 2017 Academic Signing Day is being sponsored by First Financial Bank. Other sponsors are El Dorado News-Times and Kim Smith Photography.