2020 Brittany “Ally” Harbuck Scholarship ceremony to be held September 24 via Zoom

August 31, 2020

The 2020 Brittany “Ally” Harbuck Scholarship Award Reading will be held Thursday, September 24, at 6:30 p.m. The recipient of the scholarship, as well as finalists and nominees, will give a public reading of their creative work. All Harbuck events and readings are free and open to the public. This year, you can join us via Zoom! Link: https://georgiasouthern.zoom.us/s/98790333595

The Harbuck Scholarship honors Brittany “Ally” Harbuck, a free-spirited creative writing major from Savannah who died in a traffic accident in 2005 at the age of nineteen, one week before the end of her freshman year at Georgia Southern.  She wrote for The George-Anne and was active in the Gay-Straight Alliance and the National Organization for Women on campus.  Her parents, Debi and David Harbuck of Savannah, raised the funds to endow the scholarship.

This year’s winners are as follows:

Winner

Marcelene “Marci” Delcampo is a Cuban-American writer from Effingham County, GA. She is a senior Writing and Linguistics and Modern Language: Spanish double major, and she is currently completing a chapbook of poetry for her Honors thesis that details racial, ethnic, and gender-based discrimination. A lot of her poetry is influenced by contemporary writers like George Watsky, Amanda Lovelace, and Danez Smith, and she hopes to be as successful as them in the future! Currently, Marci is extremely involved on campus: she is a Peer Academic Advisor in the Office of Advising on the Statesboro campus and a Peer Leader Supervisor for First-Year Experience, where she assists two professors with their Honors First-Year Experience courses. She is also a Southern Leader working to complete a Legacy Project, a member of the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society, and the Assistant Poetry Editor for Georgia Southern’s Miscellany: Magazine of the Arts. In addition, she was a Resident Advisor for Centennial Place, and she was chosen to represent Georgia Southern as the student speaker at the Spring 2020 Scholar’s Day ceremony/luncheon. Once she graduates, Marci hopes to publish her chapbook and find a job in the technical writing field; in the future, she hopes to move to Spain and be a Spanish-to-English translator. When she is not writing, volunteering or helping others, she is painting, reading new poetry, studying-up on her Spanish, or cuddling with one of her five (yes, five) dogs.

Finalists

Carley Robbins is from Macon, GA. She is a Writing and Linguistics major and minors in English. Once she graduates from college she hopes to find an entry-level position with a publishing company as a junior editor or attend graduate school to earn her MFA in writing. Some of the authors that have inspired her are Edgar Alan Poe, Patricia Lockwood, and Laura Halse Anderson. Pamela spends most of her time outside of class, either working or lazing around the house with her five-year-old lab, Charlie. 

Bodie Fox is a senior Writing and Linguistics major from Rome, GA. After he graduates this December, he hopes to go to graduate school for an MFA in Fiction, if he is accepted anywhere. Some of his favorite authors include: Joan Didion, Junot Díaz, Larry Brown, his professors, and his peers, who continually inspire him. 

Will Hodges is from Statesboro, Georgia, and he is currently pursuing a double major in Writing & Linguistics and French. After graduation, Will hopes to earn a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and then work with digital assistants at a technology company. Will’s strongest writing influence is Stephen King, to whom his grandfather introduced him when he was thirteen, but tied in second place are Harper Lee and Truman Capote.