Bailey Skiles earns top honors
Bailey Skiles of Marion is one of just 50 people to receive an Exceptional Student Fellowship from State Farm Companies Foundation.
Fellowship winners are chosen on the basis of scholastic performance, business leadership potential, extracurricular and volunteer activities, and recommendations from the college dean and other faculty.
The award pays a one-year stipend of $3,000 for the student's senior year of college or first year of graduate studies. In 2002, more than 300 students applied.
Skiles, the daughter of Dr. Bruce and Belinda Skiles of Marion, is attending the University of Kansas, Lawrence, majoring in business administration and marketing and history of art. She plans to earn a master's in museum studies at the University of Leicester, Leicester, England.
She is a Watkins-Berger Scholar, University Scholar, Pre-business Scholar, and Lambda Sigma National Scholar. She received the International Business Scholarship and Department of Study Abroad Fellowship for 2002, when she will spend the fall semester studying in Hong Kong.
Skiles also received the Jon O'Neal Award for excellence in the study of the history of photography. This is one of the three highest awards given to undergraduates in art history at the University of Kansas. Skiles also is chairman of the Student Sponsorship Committee for the KU Relays and is treasurer for Owl Society, the junior-level honor society at KU.
The foundation supports various graduate and undergraduate programs. In 2001 alone, more than $2 million in scholarship support was granted to 454 students.