For the second straight year, Dr. Willie Oliver of Most Valuable Smiles (MVS) dentistry in downtown Eatonton presented $1,000 scholarships to Putnam County High School (PCHS) graduates.
Oliver, who also grew up in Eatonton and graduated from PCHS, said he wants to help support young graduates as they enter the next stage of their lives.
This year’s MVS scholarship recipients are Bryant Ruff Jr. and Kaylen McBurnett. They will attend Emmanuel University and Central Georgia Technical College to study kinesiology and radiology, respectively.
“I have some family in that field, and around my junior year, I started looking into it, and I feel like radiology was something I’d be able to enjoy,” said McBurnett, who also played soccer and volleyball at PCHS until her junior year when she got a hospitality job at Reynolds-Great Waters.
Ruff said he was involved in the JRTC program throughout his PCHS years and played baseball, inspiring him to pursue a sports medicine field at Emmanuel.
“I always was interested in the healthcare field, but I also wanted to stay in the sports side of stuff, so that made me choose athletic training so I could do both simultaneously,” he said.