The Glendale Rotary Club offered $500 scholarships to adult re-entry students this spring and one of the winners was Karen Guillory, 49, sociology major.
Guillory has been attending Glendale since the spring of 2006, and has said that she enjoys it very much. She first heard of the scholarship after reading a flyer in the resource center. Not expecting to win, she said she had actually forgotten that she had applied for the scholarship.
“I was really blessed,” said Guillory, after hearing that there more than 400 applications and only four winners.
The other winners were Hasmik Stephanyan, an accounting major; Mikayel Sahakyan, a nursing major; and Armand Aslanian, also a nursing major.
On the day they received their scholarships, the Rotary Club invited each of the awardees a few minutes to address the meeting.
Dane Crawford, president and director of the Rotary Club foundation, and Glady Kabateck, a former Glendale College counselor, presented the scholarships. Kabateck called Guillory to inform her that she was a winner of the scholarship.
“The look in my son’s eyes when he passed me the phone, and the voice of Kabateck was the reward,” said Guillory. “Her voice made it feel like a personal concern.”
She doesn’t know yet what she will do with the scholarship money. She said her main concerns at the time of the interview were turning in an English essay and doing well on her finals.
“Karen is a very outstanding student, really focused in school, said Kabateck. “She never dreamed it would happen to her. She was overwhelmed on the phone, and I was excited for her.”
Kabateck was a counselor at GCC for 23 years, but she is still involved with scholarship program and works in the community.
A reason Guillory came back to school was because one day when she visited her son’s elementary school she noticed second grade students using Macintosh computers, and she was stunned that 7-year-old kids knew how to use a computer that she didn’t know how to use one.
She recalls: “I was married to a Muslim and from just being a stay-at-home mom, because my ex-husband didn’t want me to go school, I thought that I had to go to school. It will help me know the technology in today’s world. I’m a single mom and I like what I do.”
Guillory finds herself pulling all-nighters lately until 5 a.m. to study for finals, and then taking a nap at night from 6 to 8 p.m..
The scholarship application asked about goals, current classes and for a counselor’s signature.
She said her major is sociology because she likes the art of finding out about people and their similarities and that the art of humanity brings people together.
