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SEMA ups scholarship money for car-crazed college kids

Mon, 07 Jan 2013

The Specialty Equipment Market Association, better known to most of us as SEMA, has announced a hefty boost to its SEMA Memorial Scholarship Fund for 2013: The top student selected now gets $1,000 more for a total of $5,000 toward an automotive-related college education. Other eligible participants in four-year programs get $3,000—last year, they only received $2,000—and two-year students get their funds doubled to $2,000. In the Buckeye State, one lucky student at the Ohio Technical College will get complete tuition coverage, which is a cool $29,400.

For currently enrolled students who meet high levels of academic proficiency, work experience and community involvement, it's a real good resume topper. And if students get a job with a SEMA-affiliated company as a result, the organization will grant $1,000 in loan aid as an additional boost.

It might surprise you that SEMA has a scholarship program dedicated to budding young customizers. But where else do all those inspired show cars at SEMA come from? Some faux-graffitied garage door somewhere on Lankershim Boulevard? Well, yes. But the people inside that garage on Lankershim had to come from somewhere, too, and that's who the SEMA scholarship hopes to promote.

Actually, the SEMA scholarship can be applied to programs as diverse as race-car driving, graphic design, manufacturing, engineering, technician training, IT, and yes -- sign us up! -- journalism. Other scholarship programs are available from such organizations as the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association and the Global Automotive Aftermarket Symposium. Of course, none have their own chrome-studded show in Las Vegas.

Scholarship applications are now open to prospective kustomizers, to use the Barris vernacular, from an era where this sort of thing didn't exist. Apply now, and choose carefully. SEMA won't think that your Bondo'd '95 Accord wagon will look as cool under the glitterati in Vegas as you do.




By Blake Z. Rong