Pictured: Alison Majors and Dr. Mary Hearron, daughter of Elizabeth Chitsey.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Alison Averie Majors was recently named the winner of the 2024 Chitsey Award, granted each year to the student of Honors Northeast who most exceeded expectations during their first year at NTCC. The award comes with a $200 check.
The 2023 graduate of Mount Pleasant High School has impressed all three of her first-year honors professors as courteous, attentive and highly attuned to class objectives. After the fall semester, Majors was promoted to Presidential Scholar. This spring she has presented her work on the encouraged exodus of undesirables in Texas history very winsomely at the Mount Pleasant Library, the meeting of the Walter Prescott Webb Society of Texas at College Station, and the meeting of Great Plains Honors Council at Oklahoma State.
“Though all her presentations were well received” notes Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, “something clicked at Oklahoma State. Majors and her
poster attracted a devoted group of listeners who stayed with her, asking questions, even after the poster-presentation time had ended. The only thing like it that I know of in the history of NTCC was Cody Russell’s 2010 presentation at the National Collegiate Honors Council in Kansas City on the death penalty. There too, one of our NTCC presenters had a special, charismatic-type drawing power.”
The Chitsey Award has had a remarkably stimulating effect on other down-the-line student awards at NTCC through the years. Previous winners: Stephen Milburn (2013), Kelli Knepp (2014), Morgan Capps (2015), William Jones (2016), Cassidy Watkins (2017), Madison Blood (2018), Daniel Landaverde (2019), Jalyn English (2020), and Jordan Chapin (2022) have all moved on from the Chitsey to regional or national awards such as the Jack Kent Cooke, Leaders of Promise, and/or the Coca Cola Scholarships. Last year’s winner, Maddy Smith went on to win the Leaders of Promise award nationally, and is currently a Jack Kent Cooke semi-finalist.
The award also honors a former patron of Honors Northeast, Elizabeth Chitsey (1918-2013). The Winnsboro-native had children and grandchildren who have served in the teaching profession in Northeast Texas, on every level, from pre-school, to college. Each year since 2012, her family has generously supported Honors Northeast, and other functions of NTCC.
