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Air Conditioning student captures big award from Hilmor Tools
Athens Technical College Air Conditioning Technology student David Hall celebrated Christmas early when Hilmor Tools contacted him
December 10 to tell him he had won a $10,000 scholarship for an essay he wrote about what he was doing to “retool” his life.
Mr. Hall composed a 250-word piece about how he quit the job he had held for 12 years to pursue an education beyond his high school diploma
and how that pathway would enable him to build a better future for himself and his family.
A representative from Hilmor Tools called Mr. Hall as he was preparing for exams at the college to tell him that he had won the Hilmor Retool
Your Future Scholarship. The news created a major, but extremely exciting, distraction at his home, Mr. Hall recalled.
“I was trying to study for my finals, and after I got the phone call, I couldn’t study or do anything,” Mr. Hall said. “I was praising God and doing
a lot of celebrating.”
Mr. Hall’s wife, Cynthia, was stunned, he said.
“She didn’t talk to me for about an hour,” Mr. Hall said. “She was crying and rejoicing; she was ecstatic.”
The couple had been “high school sweethearts” at Oconee High School, where they graduated in 1999, Mr. Hall said. Last year, Cynthia Hall
convinced her husband to enroll at Athens Technical College to go after a dream he held from those high-school days.
Mr. Hall had set his sights on working in the heating and air conditioning field, but his family had not put a strong emphasis on education. He
was the first person in three generations of his family to graduate from high school, he said.
“After I graduated, I regretted not going on to college,” he said.
Mr. Hall instead drove a truck for Harrison Poultry after he left high school, but during those dozen years he missed being away from home so
much of the time. He and his wife have two sons — one seven years old and the other 18 months — and they are expecting another child.
“Driving a truck, I got tired of being away from my family,” Mr. Hall said. “I wanted to get back to doing something locally and to be with my
kids and watch them grow up.”
He enrolled in the Air Conditioning Technology program in January and expects to graduate with his diploma in May of 2014.
In his Hilmor essay, he wrote, “I recently realized that this (truck driving) job was not going to provide the kind of future I wanted for my family.
I knew that education was the key in retooling my life. Although many sacrifices have been made, the decision to pursue an education will impact our
family significantly.”
He also noted that the Air Conditioning Technology program at Athens Technical College has instilled in him a drive to succeed and a thirst for
education.
As a student in the Athens Technical College Air Conditioning Technology program, Mr. Hall has excelled and has maintained a 4.0 grade point
average, said his instructor Coleman Simmons.
“David is a very hard working and devoted student who is eager to further his career and future, while taking time to help others along the way,”
Mr. Simmons said.
When Mr. Hall first enrolled at the college, he was working reduced hours with Harrison Poultry, but eventually had to leave to concentrate on
his studies.
Both Pell and HOPE have helped cover Mr. Hall’s tuition as has a $1,000 scholarship he won earlier this year through the Clifford H. "Ted"
Rees Jr. Scholarship Foundation. However, without income from his job, keeping up with expenses has been a challenge, he said. He added that he
had done a lot of “praying to God” after he submitted his essay for the Hilmor scholarship.
“It’s been a struggle since I started school to pay all the bills, but (God has) been providing all along,” he said.
Hilmor Tools is Newell Rubbermaid’s brand of tools that are designed and made for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning/refrigeration
(HVAC/R) industry. The scholarship that Mr. Hall won is worth about $17,500 and includes a $10,000 monetary award, his own starter tool kit for
the HVAC/R field, and expenses for a trip to New York City for the annual AHR Expo January 21-23. The AHR Expo encompasses the international
HVAC/R industry.
“The expo is the largest HVAC/R conference,” said Athens Technical College Air Conditioning Technology Program Chair Carter Stanfield,
who told Mr. Hall about the Hilmor scholarship. “Everybody who is anybody in the air conditioning and heating profession is there.”
In addition to Mr. Hall’s scholarship award, Hilmor also is donating a “Hilmor Green Wall” to Athens Technical College, Mr. Simmons said.
“That is an extensive selection of some very nice durable tools used by the HVAC industry, and which will be available for use by all the
students in the Air Conditioning Technology program here at the college,” Mr. Simmons said. “When I received word that David had won the Hilmor
Retool Your Future Scholarship, I was very excited and proud, because this scholarship not only means a big help in furthering David’s educational
and career future, but Athens Tech’s Air Conditioning program and its students for years to come.”
Don Nelson
706 355-5011
http://www.athenstech.edu/Spotlight.cfm?i=489
1/16/2014
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Athens Technical College * 800 US Hwy 29 North * Athens, Ga * 30601 * 706-355-5000 * A Unit of the Technical College System of Georgia
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800 U.S. Highway 29 North, Athens, GA 30601.
http://www.athenstech.edu/Spotlight.cfm?i=489
1/16/2014
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