2007-2008 Southwest Bluegrass Club Scholarship Recipient
Alison Welshans is 44 years old and comes from Haneyville,
Pennsylvania. She is married to her childhood sweetheart, John, and
they have three children, ages 27, 23, and 20. Alison plays upright
bass and is a vocalist; John plays guitar, dobro, banjo, and pedal
steel. Together, they have been playing, singing, and performing Bluegrass
music for almost 28 years.
After suffering a near fatal health crisis and the death of her beloved
mother in 2004, Alison decided that life was too short not to spend
it playing music! Fortunately, John shared the same dream: to be able
to make a living making music. When their youngest child left home
to go to college, they decided that the time was right to begin working
toward their dream, so they put their house up for sale and applied
to South Plains College for enrollment in the Commercial Music program.
To their great delight, both were accepted, and granted scholarships
from the Southwest Bluegrass Club. However, their house did not sell
in time for them to make it to SPC in the Fall of '07. In order to
take advantage of the generous Southwest Bluegrass Club scholarship,
they decided that Alison should attend school while John holds down
the fort at home. So Alison packed her bass and her dog in her van,
drove cross-country, and now calls Levelland home during the school
year.
Alison enjoys so many things about the Bluegrass program at South
Plains College, that it's hard to name them all! She finds that she
loves learning and being a student. She loves being around the young
folks in the program, sharing their enthusiasm and joy of discovery.
She loves being around the older folks in the program, identifying
with their daring life change and relating to their life experiences.
She loves being around the teachers, knowing that they are all music
professionals and that they care about her development and success
as a student and a musician. She loves being around musicians in general,
because they're just her kind of people. And then there's the MUSIC!
Just being around all that talent, quality, and dedication is inspiring
to her every day.
Alison's plans are to aquire her Associate's degree in Commercial
Music, and also a Certificate in Music Business. She plans to perform
in and manage a Bluegrass band along with her husband, John, manage
and promote other bands, and to promote Blugrass music in her home
state of Pennsylvania.
2006-2007 Southwest Bluegrass Club Scholarship Recipients
Kate and Penny Clark are identical twins and are Ben Clark's
younger siblings (see next paragraph). Katy and Penny shared the Southwest
Bluegrass Club scholarship in 2004, and were awarded the scholarship
again in 2006. The twins are from Kilgore, TX, and they plan to follow
their brother, Ben, to Nashville when they finish at South Plains College.
They represent the college by playing in the "Thursday Night Live" ensembe
as well as the "Country Jukebox" which is seen weekly on a local cable
channel. Katy plays banjo, piano, guitar, and accordian. Penny plays
mandolin and guitar.
The twins' brother, Ben Clark, also known as "Banjo Ben", moved to
Nashville after his time at South Plains College. Ben started out
playing with Josh Grayson and now plays with Craig Morgan. He performed
for George Jones' 75th Birthday Party, and he lives next door to Porter
Waggoner.
2005-2006 Southwest Bluegrass Club Scholarship Recipient
Rebecca ZuWallack grew up in Mashpee, MA, a small
town on Cape Cod. She is a 1997 graduate of the Naval Academy and
was introduced to bluegrass music by a friend while on active duty.
She liked it so much that she decided to enroll at South Plains College
after her 5 year active duty commitment ended in July 2002. She arrived
in Levelland for the Fall 2002 semester and has been there ever since.
She’ll graduate in May 2006 and will have earned two degrees:
an Associate of Applied Arts Degree in Commercial Music and an Associate
of Applied Science Degree in Sound Technology. She plans to continue
her education in sound technology at the University of Massachusetts
Lowell that offers a bachelor’s degree in Sound Recording Technology.
Her long term goal is to produce albums for bluegrass artists.
Rebecca admits to having been a total beginner as a bluegrass guitar
player when she arrived at Levelland but, with the help of Joe Carr and
Alan Munde, has improved to the point where she now picks with “Pickin’
on the Plains”, an ensemble that performs shows every couple of weeks
that a local cable channel broadcasts. She was also the sound engineer
for separate performances recordings of Alan Munde with Tony Trischka
and Alan Munde with David Grier.
Rebecca has distinguished herself academically at SPC. Because of her
high grade point average, she has been selected to work as a student
tutor and scholarship assistant. She has also been selected to serve as
an intern with the Southwest Collection, part of the Special
Collections Library at Texas Tech University. One of her duties is to
process Alan Munde’s entire collection of recordings, documents,
photographs and memorabilia which he recently donated to the University.
Rebecca sends her appreciation for the opportunity the Southwest
Bluegrass Club has made possible for her at South Plains College. Your
generosity makes a difference !!
2001-2002 Southwest Bluegrass Club Scholarship Recipient
Jedd Hughes from Australia received the scholarship in 2001.
Following his time at South Plains College, Jedd moved to Nashville
and began playing with Patti Loveless. He signed with MCA recors and
released "Transcontinental" on that lvael. He also wrote the hit song
"Stay With Me" for Josh Grayson. Jedd is currently playing with fellow
Australian Keith Urban and can be seen on Keith's latest hit video.
