UPB Scholarship to Benefit Elk Co. Students

A new scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford will benefit business students from Elk County.

Ward and Lori Garner of Cranberry, a suburb of Pittsburgh, have pledged $5,000 for the creation of the Ward and Lori Garner/PBAA Scholarship. The Garners’ gift will be matched by the Agnes L. and Lewis Lyle Thomas Scholarship Challenge.

Ward Garner graduated in 1989 from Pitt-Bradford, where he majored in business management.

“I believe that much of my success is due to the education I received at Pitt-Bradford, and I want to give back and help one or two others achieve some success, as I have,” Garner said. “The key to solving social problems is education, and that’s what drives me.”

He graduated from St. Marys Area High School and served five years in the U.S. Air Force before enrolling at Pitt-Bradford.

Garner dabbled in entrepreneurship as a disc jockey from 1985 until 1998.

Last fall, Garner received the Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association Distinguished Volunteer Award for his work on the PBAA board for six years and as PBAA representative to the Pitt Alumni Association.

He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner and senior vice president at Bill Few Associates in Pittsburgh.

The Thomas Scholarship Challenge matches the amount of any gift between $5,000 and $50,000 given for scholarships. The commitment can be paid over five years.

The Garners also chose to have their scholarship be a PBAA Scholarship, which allows a PBAA committee to hand-screen the applicants and recommend recipients based not only on their application information, but also on their responses to an optional essay.

For more information on the Thomas Scholarship Challenge, contact Joelle Warner, manager of donor services, at jaw104@pitt.edu or (814)362-5104.