API awards $42,000 in scholarships

Six Tri-City area students will be getting a chunk of their college expenses paid after they received $42,000 in scholarships at the Atchafalaya Chapter of the American Petroleum Institute’s 59th Annual Scholarship Banquet held Thursday at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City. Forty-seven students applied for the scholarships.
API Scholarship Chairman Herbie Kimble said API began by awarding a single scholarship and now awards up to five scholarships each year. The St. Mary Industrial Group also presents its annual scholarship during the banquet.
API and SMIG are currently funding scholarships for 22 students. Scholarships are made possible by donations from people in the community, Kimble said.
Writing an essay is a big part of the scholarship application process each year, Kimble said. This year’s essay topic was “addressing the drop in oil prices and the effect that it has on our personal finances and the local economy,” Kimble said.
All of the essays were superb, and the topic was one of the most personally relatable topics API has used, Kimble said.
Two of the scholarships were worth $12,000 apiece, consisting of eight payments of $1,500 throughout a four-year period. There are minimum hour and grade requirements to remain eligible for the scholarships.
One of the $12,000 scholarships went to Central Catholic senior John Parker who plans to major in chemical engineering at LSU.
Berwick High senior Taylor Fegenbush received the other $12,000 scholarship. He will study to become either a computer programmer or software developer while attending Louisiana-Lafayette.
Two more scholarships API awarded were worth $4,000 each, consisting of eight payments of $500 over four years.
The first recipient of the $4,000 API scholarship was Patterson High senior Bailey Nelson. She will attend LSU and pursue a finance degree. The second recipient, Berwick High senior Vroni Parsiola, plans to attend LSU and major in engineering.
The Ronnie Roussel Scholarship, a $6,000 scholarship established in 1986 to honor Roussel’s memory, was awarded to Central Catholic senior Lynze Belle.
During the banquet, SMIG presented its $4,000 scholarship to Morgan City High senior Diana Tran.
Guest speaker for the banquet was PHI Inc. Chairman and CEO Al Gonsoulin. PHI Inc. is one of the world’s leading helicopter services companies and is based out of Lafayette, according to its website. Gonsoulin is a New Iberia native and resident of Sugar Land, Texas. He went to high school in Houma and worked in the area until moving to Houston in 1982.
Finding a focus is vitally important to success, Gonsoulin said. He didn’t begin to get serious about his education until his junior year in college, he said.
“Within the next two years I basically caught up to my class, and I learned some interesting things at that time that I’ve used throughout my business career,” Gonsoulin said.
He had an economics professor who taught students to focus on the “whole picture” when making a decision, Gonsoulin said.
“The whole picture is a decision framework that I’ve always used, sometimes unconsciously,” Gonsoulin said. Before making any business decisions, Gonsoulin examines all the effects that a particular decision could have to his employees, the financial status of the company and, finally, the overall effects to the company, he said.
Gonsoulin told students they have tremendous opportunities and have taken the first step in their career paths by putting forth the effort “to get here tonight.”
Gonsoulin has had quite the journey himself. The first time he ever rode in a helicopter was in the late 1960s, flying offshore out of Morgan City in a two-person PHI Inc. helicopter, he said. He never imagined at that time he’d get into the helicopter business and would eventually run PHI Inc. one day, he said.
He stressed the importance of recognizing opportunities and taking advantage of them.
“I’d give anything to be in your seat right now, and that’s going to sound a little crazy,” Gonsoulin said. “I’ve had years of experience, but there’s a lot of things I’d like to go back and redo.”
College is just the first step for students as they embark on their careers, he said.
“I certainly hope some of you return to the area because that’s the way you can enhance what you have here,” Gonsoulin said.
Gonsoulin encouraged students to find a career they enjoy so it’ll never be work, he said.
“In my experiences, I’ve been fortunate. I’ve done things that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed so it’s never been a job,” Gonsoulin said.
Students should never measure their success by financial success, he said.
“Too often, it’s all about money. It really isn’t all about money,” Gonsoulin said. “It’s you being successful in whatever you do.”
Regardless of whether students received scholarships Thursday night, they should look at just getting to the banquet as a success, he said.

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com.