Saturday, January 7, 2012

"If you can somehow get $1,000 that's not out of your own pocket, it will help immensely," said Matthew Kreidler, senior at Mulvane High School.

Help will come a year earlier for students in South Central Kansas. The Kansas Star Casino announced that 419 Kansas All-Star Scholars Fund scholarships will be awarded one eligible graduating seniors in Mulvane and Sumner County.

"I thought it was very nice and generous of them. I was surprised to hear that our class would also be included in that. I think it's good that they opened it early, so that we could be included," said Rebecca Malanchuk, senior at Mulvane High School.

The class of 2012 is looking forward to use the money toward college expenses like buying books and paying for tuition.

"'Every little bit counts is,' what my parents always said, so the $1,000 would help. And then you just keep adding on to what you have and eventually it'll make a big difference," said Taylor Hatfield, senior at Mulvane High School.

"It would definitely help for college. It would definitely help for funding for my classes and make it easier on my pocket," said Kreidler.

Each year, the casino will also provide $100 to each student to purchase school supplies and $500 to each teacher to purchase classroom supplies, and $1,000 scholarships to each senior who graduates from a Sumner County or Mulvane high school.

"For a lot of those kids, that'll mean the difference between maybe enrolling in community college or not, or attending a different university that they really want to attend or not. So those opportunities are just unbelievable," said J.T. Klaus, parent of Mulvane school students.

The payment of $419,000 was made one year earlier than originally planned, since the casino officially opened on Dec. 26.

"We were very fortunate to be able to open up early and great effort from our construction and our operations team, a little good luck with weather along the way, and it all just came together. So we thought it was the right thing to do," said Scott Cooper, general manager of the Kansas Star Casino.