$36K in scholarships awarded

Five area high school seniors received $36,000 in college scholarships at Wednesday’s 58th annual American Petroleum Institute Atchafalaya Chapter Scholarship Banquet at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City.
A total of 32 area students applied for the scholarships. Two $12,000 API scholarships were awarded, two $4,000 API scholarships were given, and the $4,000 St. Mary Industrial Group scholarship was presented. Minimum hour and grade requirements must be met to remain eligible.
Funding for the scholarships is made possible through API fundraising events. The two $12,000 API scholarships were awarded to Morgan City High’s Thuy Nguyen, who plans to attend Xavier University and major in pharmacy, and Morgan City’s Angelique Oncale, who will attend the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and study psychology.
One of the $4,000 API scholarships was awarded to Berwick High’s Drew Landry, who plans to attend Louisiana State University and pursue a law degree. The other $4,000 API scholarship was given to Berwick High’s Olivia Gilbert, who plans to attend either Tulane or Duke and become a pediatric oncologist. The scholarships will be paid out over eight semesters.
The SMIG scholarship was awarded to Berwick High’s Emily Lipari, who scored a 32 on the ACT.
Kirk Crochet, a former teacher and coach in Morgan City, was the keynote speaker. He began his teaching and coaching career at Central Catholic High School in 1974 and moved on to Morgan City High, becoming head track coach and assistant football coach for four years.
Crochet coached at Loreauville High School for 28 years serving as athletic director, head football and track coach, winning 12 district championships and 14 coach of the year honors.
Crochet said he has lunch each Monday with a judge, a dentist and a businessman. All of them, including Crochet, took the conventional approach to making a career and going to college not taking too many chances, he said.
They are “inside the box thinkers,” Crochet said.
Crochet also has lunch with a 45-year-old man who has a trucking company but does not own any trucks. “This guy’s a third-party broker, and if you want anything hauled in this country, he will find you a truck,” Crochet said. “He’s an outside the box thinker. He doesn’t have to buy batteries, tires, insurance. Heck, he doesn’t have to buy a truck,” Crochet said.
Crochet called the man a genius.
Another man Crochet has known for many years started out as a high school football coach. “He couldn’t win many games so he went to law school at the age of 37, became a lawyer at the age of 40,” Crochet said. That man was so successful that he retired at age 47. He then invested a lot of his money into Lafayette real estate and has been extremely successful in that as well, Crochet said.
A 27-year-old man, who went to X-ray technician school with Crochet’s son, hated his job as an X-ray tech so he started his own sports website. A large sports website hired him and he is now making more money than Crochet’s son. Crochet’s son is still happy in his career as an X-ray technician, but is an inside the box thinker, Crochet said.
The next out of the box thinker Crochet referenced was a “hillbilly from West Virginia” who left Michigan State as head football coach over a salary dispute. “He was making $750,000 per year at Michigan State, but LSU paid him $1.2 million so he came to Baton Rouge,” Crochet said.
In 14 years, he has revived the LSU program, the Alabama program and has won four national championships, Crochet said. He now makes $7.5 million per year.
Inside the box thinkers are traditional and conventional, while outside the box thinkers are more creative and take more chances, he said. “I hope my friends have inspired you to think either inside the box or outside the box, or both,” Crochet told the students.
Crochet left students with four keys to success, which includes believing in yourself, setting goals, working hard and keeping God your life, he said.