Pre-school teacher wins surprise scholarship

CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – A Hixson woman today received a life-changing surprise from Western Governor’s University.

That’s a non-profit, on-line college designed to offer more Tennesseans access to undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Dallas Bay Church pre-school teacher Natalie Fiddler was surprised at the announcement from W-G-U chancellor Dr. Kimberly Estep.

She is the 3rd person to receive that scholarship.

The on-line university was created as part of the governor’s Drive to 55 campaign.

The goal is to provide a better educated workforce to meet the demands of new industry that’s already in the state, and other companies that will come.

Fiddler says “This is everything to me, actually. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to continue and finish if I didn’t get some sort of scholarship and this is going to pretty much cover the entire thing all my fees so this – this is everything. Part of our goals is to help students graduate without debt. So if they get a large scholarship they can often graduate and take on no education debt.”

W-G-U is planning to give 7 more of those scholarships in the next few weeks.