CALLED TO ACHIEVE
Hutchison senior third to receive coveted UNC honor
Hutchison senior Gabi Stein earns $170,000 full-ride scholarship to University of North Carolina.
Gabi Stein isn’t sure exactly what her major will be, but she is definitely going to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill next fall. Before that, she’ll be taking a 30-day kayaking adventure in Alaska, all of it funded by the Morehead-Cain Foundation.
Stein is one of three students in the last four years from Hutchison School to receive the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, the oldest merit scholarship in the nation and patterned after the Rhodes Scholarship.
For an out-of-state student, the fouryear full ride to UNC plus summer travel each year exceeds $170,000. For North Carolina students, the value of the award is around $90,000.
“The reason we exist is to sustain and enhance the University of North Carolina. We do that by bringing in students like Gabi, who are strong leaders and strong students,” said David Mabe, foundation spokesman.
Hutchison officials believe the school is one of two in the nation to produce three winners in five years. The other winners are Caroline Orr and Gaby Noir.
Stein, 17, who plans to study biostatistics (but is also interested in physics, Asian studies and entrepreneurism, “so there could be many possibilities,” she says) is one of the driving forces behind Hutchison’s first TED Youth conference next month and the fact that the school newspaper now has an online corollary, the Beeline.
The nonprofit TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, was founded in 1984 as a way to promote “ideas worth spreading” usually in 18-minute talks.
“I had been watching a lot of TED Talks. I presented the idea to my school. It became the year-end project for Rogers Scholars, a group at Hutchison that studies Memphis-based issues and goes into the community to learn more about the economy of Memphis,” she said.
As co- editor-i n- chief, Stein also was concerned that The Signpost, the school newspaper, was dating itself by not having an online version. “We traveled to New York to other all-girls’ schools to see what they were doing. When we came back, we discussed what we had learned, pursued a URL and began going through the process of creating online journalism.”
The scholarship is named for John Motley Morehead III, a chemist whose work provided the basis for Union Carbide Corp. He gave UNC $130 million to attract undergraduates who exhibit a “mixture of moral force of character, scholarship, leadership and physical vigor,” Mabe said. “We give awards to others, too, but for this award we are looking for people who are committed to physical fitness.”
Several years ago, Mary Cain, widow of Gordon Cain, pioneer of the leveraged buyout i n t he petrochemical industry, donated $100 million to the foundation.
The physical commitment is emphasized in the summer travel. Stein was given a choice of a several outdoor adventures this summer, including the Outward Bound trip. Sophomore-year travel allows winners to pursue international service. The stipend in the junior and senior years provides funding to pursue their passions in research.
Stein, who has a GPA of 5. 19 on a weighted 4.0 system, also has been offered a full ride to Georgia Tech, the Day’s Scholarship at Rhodes College, and full scholarships to Tulane University and Kenyon College.