Miss Texas scholarship set up in Hubbard's name
May 21—In honor of the 25th anniversary of becoming Miss Texas, the Tatum Hubbard Visionary Scholarship Fund has been created.
John Trischitti, executive director of the Literacy Coalition of the Permian Basin and friend of Hubbard's, formed the scholarship. He is on the Miss Texas Scholarship Foundation Board.
"I thought what better way to honor her and do something good for the organization than start an endowed scholarship in her name," Trischitti said in a phone interview.
He added that he has known Hubbard for 10 or 12 years, but has been a fan for longer than that.
"It just felt like the right time to do something like that given that it was her 25th anniversary year and I was in a position being on the foundation board to help establish a scholarship in her name and honor her in that way, but also have it pay dividends and benefit young women for years to come," Trischitti said.
The goal is to offer $1,000 the first year. The first recipient of the Tatum Hubbard Visionary Scholarship will be at this year's Miss Texas Pageant this summer.
Click here if you would like to make a contribution.
"They have a big scholarship luncheon and Tatum will be there so all of the contestants that are eligible can apply. There's an application process. Then Tatum wanted to have interviews. She felt like that was important and so she has a committee together and they'll select a recipient and hopefully select a recipient every year in perpetuity," he said.
Some of the scholarship criteria is that you have to be a first-generation college student and have your primary residence west of the I-35 corridor. You should study education, public service, broadcast journalism or journalism.
When Hubbard heard about Trischitti's effort, she asked herself if it had really been 25 years. Her second thought was how honored she felt.
"It's taken him a lot of time and effort to contact people who would be interested (and) work with the Miss Texas organization. It's so nice that he would see the value in doing that and want to create an opportunity for young women and then attach my name to it," Hubbard said.
She added that it's really cool.
After she was crowned Miss Texas, Hubbard stayed involved for many years, emceeing the pageant, which she said is based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
"I didn't attend every year. Last year was the first time that I've been back in 10 or 15 years. I went because my daughter, who is now a teenager, had a friend who was competing and so we went to see her, but it was wonderful. ... I've been disconnected for too long," Hubbard said.
Her $40,000 in scholarship money from the pageant enabled her to pay for her college education and gave her a chance to do an internship in Washington, D.C.
"My family would never have been able to do that and so it was really life changing for me. This is how I paid for my education," she said.
Very few things have changed over the last 25 years, Hubbard said.
"I competed six times before I finally won ... I started doing pageants because I was a singer and a dancer. Back then, there was no American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. If you wanted to perform, that was your platform. There was talent, there was interview. I was good at interview because it was a lot about current events. Even at that age, I read the newspaper every day. I was a news person even as a teenager. I loved that kind of stuff. So interview was fun for me and then there's the evening gown and when I did it there was the swimsuit competition," she added.
