UTPA Student named Nancy Larson Foundation Scholar – Scholarship awarded for studying elementary education
Lucia Hernandez
EDINBURG – Two students from the University of Texas Pan American (UTPA) were awarded $1000 scholarships from the Nancy Larson Foundation for their outsanding Academic record and community service.
San Juan native Lucia Hernandez, a junior at the University of Texas Pan-American majoring in bilingual elementary education, was raised in a family of eight children. After high school, she hoped to continue her education and attend college. A couple of weeks after graduation from high school, she began waitressing to help save for college. A year later she got married and then had two children. In the summer of 2011, with her husband’s support, she enrolled at South Texas College to pursue her dream and graduated in 2014 with her Associates of Arts in Teaching. This past fall she began pursuing her bachelor’s degree in education.
Inspired by children’s author David Rice who visited her literature class, Hernandez remembers one of his phrases. “Teachers have a lot of power over their students; they can help a good student become successful, or they can destroy one,” he said. “Those words gave me the motivation to become a successful teacher,” Hernandez said. “I want to have the power to help my students become successful teachers, engineers, attorneys or whatever it is they want to become.”