May 1, 2023
YES YOU CAN
Yes, you can attend college. Yes, you can pay for college. Yes, you can graduate from college.
The Lowe Family Young Scholars Program, a 17-year old program that has changed 13+ lives through college graduation is changing its name to Young Scholars of Bartlesville. While the name will change, the program will maintain the same great mission to assist academically promising, yet economically disadvantaged students in the Bartlesville Public School System to earn a college degree.
“We remain steadfast in providing quality service for our local students to prove that “yes they can” get a college degree!” said Michael Secora, the Executive Director for the program. “Our students have a 3-4 times more likelihood to graduate college than if they were not in our program.”
Over the last several months, there has been some confusion about who our program is associated with and how it was established. We are not associated with Lowe’s stores or with Jo Allyn Lowe (Park or the founder of the Bartlesville Boys and Girls Club). The program is also not just a scholarship-granting foundation and not fully funded by the Barry and Karen Lowe family.
Barry and Karen Lowe were members of a small group of major donors who did initially fund an endowment at OSU, OKWU, and RSU. The program remains publicly supported for the execution of the mission to help students graduate college by removing obstacles and equipping young men and women for the work ahead.
Consequently, this is why we are changing the name of the organization to Young Scholars of Bartlesville, with the tag line Lowe Family Inspired –Community Supported.
“We feel the new name, tag line and logo still honor Barry’s wishes to honor his parents’ names in the establishment of this very successful organization, but better communicates the mission and support sources of the organization,” said Karen Lowe-Alton. Furthermore, in the course of conducting surveys, the input we gathered from students solidly supported the new name. Please visit our website www.bartlesvillescholars.org or call Michael Secora at 918-766-6675 with any questions you may have as we continue to change students' lives!