August 21, 2015
Presidential Scholar Morgan Capps is the 2015 winner of the $200 Elizabeth Chitsey Prize given annually to a student at Honors Northeast whose performance in the preceding year far exceeded expectations. Capps enrolled at Northeast Texas Community College late in the summer of 2014 as an Honors Scholar, but went on to win a $300 second-place state Caldwell prize for essays in Texas History.† Her essay, which crossed over biological metaphors to describe the relationship of Texas governors Ma and Pa Ferguson, has also become the inspiration behind the forthcoming 2016 Honors Northeast film.††
Capps†won a $100-fourth-place award in the 2014 Northeast Texas Poetry contest, presented at the Great Plains Honors Council on South Padre Island, and received a coveted invitation to present at the 50th-anniversy meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council this November in Chicago.
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Previous Chitsey winners have found the award a valuable stepping stone for national honors. †NTCC's 2013 winner, Stephen Milburn, went on to win an exclusive Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, and 2014 winner, Kelli Knepp, later won one of the 200 Leaders of Promise Awards bestowed every fall by Coca Cola and Phi Theta Kappa.
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Capps was the 2014 Valedictorian of the Jefferson Christian Academy.† She is the daughter of Charlotte Nau, and David Capps.
The award honors a former patron of Honors Northeast, Elizabeth Chitsey (1918-2013). The Winnsboro-born, former bookkeeper and mother had children, and grandchildren who have served as leaders and teachers of education in Northeast Texas, on every level, from pre-school, to college.† Each year since 2012, her family has generously supported the award and other social functions of Honors Northeast.† For more information about the program or the award, contact Dr. Andrew Yox, at†ayox@ntcc.edu.†
