The Meridian Downtown Optimist Club Tuesday presented a check to the Meridian Community College Foundation.

It fully endows the Bill Herndon Memorial Scholarship Fund, which was established to give a second chance to students who have dropper out of school.

"This program allows them to go through a program that was set up by Sonny Montgomery at Camp Shelby for dropouts and at-risk youths," said Paul Tarver of the Downtown Optimist Club. "It rewards them if they pass their G.E.D. And rewards them with a free scholarship to MCC".

"I've heard so much about Bill Herndon and this is a scholarship in his memory, established by the Optimist Club. And it's fully endowed now and it's at $25,000," said Kathy Brookshire, director of MCC Institutional Advancement. "We're very excited to award this to students that we hope will give them the message of what a great man Bill Herndon was."

The fund was set up in 1998 to honor Herndon, who was a member of the Downtown Optimist Club.