TSTC Aviation Maintenance student receives local scholarship

(WACO, Texas) – Whit Palmer’s motivation comes from a giving source.

“I’d say it is the love of God in my own life and all of the blessings I’ve had,” the Temple resident said. “I want to share that blessing with others.”

Palmer, 19, is an Aircraft Airframe Technology and Aircraft Powerplant Technology major at Texas State Technical College. He recently received the Keith Hull Memorial Scholarship for $5,000 from Wings for Christ International in Waco. Hull was a member of the U.S. Air Force and founded the organization in 1961 in Arizona. Hull moved the organization in 1970 to Waco.

This is the first scholarship the organization has awarded. The organization’s mission is to spiritually and professionally develop aviators to gain pilot hours and fly for mission work to remote areas.

Palmer said the scholarship will help him because a lot of mission organizations discourage workers from having debt.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve always liked working with my hands and potentially spreading the good news of the gospel is eye opening for me.”

Darin Pound, senior pastor at Temple First Church of the Nazarene where Palmer and his family are lifelong members, exposed him to aviation while in high school by taking him flying.

“He is well deserving of the award,” Pound said. “He will use it to further his education but also fulfill the calling he senses in his life to use his love for aviation as a tool to minister to people and help people wherever God leads.”

Palmer’s church membership helped him learn about aviation’s role in mission work. He traveled to Belize twice while in high school on missions to help build a church and work with children.

Palmer graduated in 2018 from Providence Preparatory School in Belton.

Cheryl Hull, Wings for Christ International’s secretary and treasurer on the Board of Directors, said the organization’s goal is to award a yearly aviation scholarship built on the generosity of the business community.

Applications for Wings for Christ International’s next Keith Hull Memorial Scholarship are due May 31. For more information, go to wingsforchrist.org.

For more information on Texas State Technical College, go to tstc.edu.