UA Announces Virginia O’Neal Sollie Memorial Scholarship

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Sciences has announced an endowed scholarship in honor of Virginia O’Neal Sollie, of Ozark.

The Virginia O’Neal Sollie Memorial Endowed Scholarship will be awarded with preference to first-generation college students, undergraduate or graduate, majoring in journalism. The scholarship has been started with a generous donation from Catherine Clark Mosbacher of Houston, Texas, in order to honor Sollie and to support academic excellence in the College of Communication and Information Sciences.

Sollie was a 1974 graduate of The University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism. She would go on to be deputy director of bicentennial activities for the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare before working at The University of Alabama Huntsville in media relations and advancement and finishing her career in the Office of Development of Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Fla.

Classmates, sorority sisters and fellow coworkers remember Sollie, a 1969 graduate of Carroll High School in Ozark, as kind, bright, fun-loving and loyal. She died Oct. 14, 2010.

Additional contributions are being accepted for the scholarship. For more information, contact Larry O’Neal, director of leadership gifts, 205/348-7654 or lwoneal@advance.ua.edu.