Hayden Green awarded $5k annual scholarship to optometry school

Hayden Green of West Plains, a first-year student at Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tenn., was recently honored with the Dr. William R. Jackson, Jr. Memorial Endowed Scholarship award. The award recognizes an optometry student from Missouri who had a competitive undergraduate grade point average, Optometry Admission Test score, admissions interview and extracurricular activities. It comes with an annual scholarship of $5,000 over the course of the four-year doctorate program. Green is the son of Chris and Amy Green. His grandparents are Marvin and Louanna Little and Doug Parrish. He is a graduate of University of Missouri and West Plains High School.  Each year, said officials, Southern College of Optometry recognizes its most outstanding first-year students with scholarships to help defray the costs of their education in pursuit of their Doctor of Optometry degrees. For the 2023-24 academic school year, the college awarded first-year scholarships to 94 students, representing 90.3% of the entering class. The scholarship total awarded to first-year students this year surpassed $960,000, the highest in the school’s 91-year history.