The Phillip G. Dickerson Sr. Memorial Scholarship

I wrote about my dad’s passing last week. While we’re missing him and adjusting to life without him, my brother and I have been spending time at my dad’s house getting his affairs in order and reminiscing about his life. One of the constants in all of our lives has been NC State. My dad really believed in the power of education and talked about it constantly when we were growing up. He graduated from NC State with a B.S. in civil engineering in 1968. He grew up with little money and kept having to quit school to work to make more money to go back to school again. It took him seven years to get that degree, so it meant a lot to him. He loved NC State and his house is covered in NC State paraphernalia.

My brother and I decided that the ultimate tribute to our dad would be to endow a memorial scholarship at NC State in his name to make it easier for others like him to build the kind of rich life that he did through education.

If you are interested in contributing to honor my dad’s legacy, gifts may be made to the Phillip G. Dickerson Sr. Memorial Scholarship Endowment. Checks should be written to the NC State Engineering Foundation and can be mailed to: NC State Engineering Foundation, Campus Box 7901, Raleigh, NC 27695. Or contribute online here. Go to “Search All Funds” type “Dickerson” and you should see Phillip G. Dickerson Sr. Memorial Scholarship Endowment. All gifts are considered tax-deductible.

I know my dad would be thrilled to have an Engineering scholarship at NC State named after him. The image below is of a letter I found just yesterday that my dad wrote to my mom in December 1961 when he was a first year student at NC State and they were still dating. He had gotten three test scores back, all miserable: 35, 33, and 31. He wrote to his girlfriend (my future mom), “I’m going to change to Agriculture Education next semester I think. This Engineering is just too much math and technical stuff for me.” But he didn’t quit and powered through with the sheer force of will we saw him apply over and over in his life when he had a goal in mind. And now one of his legacies will be to help other NC State engineering students do the same.