BRISTOL, Va.—A Virginia Intermont College student who aspires to share her love of God as a photographer and missionary has won a prestigious scholarship from the Virginia Press Women’s Foundation.
Kayla Robbins (Photo courtesy of Virginia Intermont College)
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Kayla Robbins, a rising junior at the Baptist-affiliated school, was given the VPW’s Agnes Cooke Scholarship for three photographs she shot on a 2011 mission trip to Nicaragua with Intermont’s volley ball team.
The Virginia Press Women’s Foundation usually presents one $550 scholarship annually to a college undergraduate or graduate student pursuing a communications career but this year awarded two scholarships. When the second student was unable to accept the award, the VPW voted to grant the total $1,100 to Robbins.
She will be recognized at the organization’s “Storytelling in a Digital Age” conference Oct. 13 in Richmond, Va.
When Robbins received the notice, her “mind was blown,” she said in a press release distributed by Intermont.
“I had been praying about this scholarship for months, asking that it would be given to the person who most deserved it—even if I wasn’t that person,” she said. “… God has provided for me beyond all I could imagine and that’s humbling.”
“Chico” was one of the photographs which earned Kayla Robbins a scholarship from the Virginia Press Women’s Foundation. (Photo courtesy of Virginia Intermont College)
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The Decatur, Texas, native also was the recipient of this year’s Pinkerton Photography Award given by Intermont’s photography faculty and was the school’s first freshman to take first place honor in its annual juried student exhibition.
“Although I had a vast array of photographs I could have chosen from [to submit for the scholarship application], I feel the ones I made in Nicaragua best capture who I want to be as a photographer, where I want to go, and what my vision is becoming,” said Robbins.
The Virginia Press Women is an organization of both women and men professional communicators affiliated with the National Federation of Press Women. Its foundation is operated by an elected board of five members.
Robert Dilday (rdilday@religousherald.org) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.