Amber Pulliam Special Education endowment

Amber Pulliam was born on October 20, 1987, the daughter of Don and Helen Pulliam. She was born with Down syndrome.

In 1997 her family established an endowment in her name at The University of Southern Mississippi. Amber's first cousin, Lance Bass, of the group NSYNC, helped make it possible.

The purpose is a simple one, and the university states it plainly: to award a scholarship to a student who is studying in the area of Special Education with emphasis in the Disability area of teaching.

Which is to say the fund pays to train the teachers. The people who will spend their careers in classrooms with children like Amber, doing the patient, unglamorous, largely unwitnessed work that changes what a child's life turns out to be.

Who the scholarship is for: an undergraduate at Southern Miss, in the School of Education, studying special education with an emphasis in the disability area of teaching, and maintaining a 3.0 grade point average or better. Preference goes to students from the Pine Belt, meaning Covington, Forrest, Greene, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Lamar, Marion, Perry and Wayne counties.

That last part is not a coincidence. Our three offices sit in Jones County, Wayne County and Covington County, three of those nine. The scholarship was written to favor the same communities this agency has served since 1984. Our neighbors' children, teaching our neighbors' children.

To apply: the scholarship is listed with the university at usm.academicworks.com/opportunities/35409, through the Southern Miss scholarship system.

To give: gifts go through the USM Foundation and can be designated to the Amber Pulliam Special Education Endowment by name. Details are at usmfoundation.com/waystogive, or call the Foundation at 601-266-5210. By mail, the address is USM Foundation, 118 College Drive #5210, Hattiesburg, MS 39406.

An endowment is permanent. The gift is invested and the earnings pay the scholarship, so what you give this year is still sending somebody to school long after the rest of us have stopped paying attention.