NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Leah Jackson (jacksonl@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

3/17/2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES - A donation to the Northwestern State University Foundation from Keith and Julie Bergeron will benefit a freshman majoring in business or education.

The Bergeron scholarship will be endowed in three years at the $10,000 level and will be awarded to a student from Pointe Coupee Parish, where the Bergeron's are from, starting this fall. The Bergerons grew up in New Roads in the rural parish and attended Northwestern State.

Keith Bergeron attended NSU from 1970-74 and earned a degree in business. He worked in banking in Baton Rouge and New Roads before moving to Shreveport in 1994 to manage Hibernia National Bank's retail banking division in northwest Louisiana. He was later promoted to northwest Louisiana regional chairman with responsibility for Hibernia's banking activities in a nine-parish area.

Mr. Bergeron serves on the NSU Foundation Board and the Dean's Advisory Board for the College of Business. He was instrumental in coordinating the Hibernia National Bank Professorship in Business. He was inducted into the NSU College of Business Hall of Distinction in 2000.

Dr. Julie Bergeron attended from 1972-1974 majoring in elementary education and finished her degree at Louisiana State University in 1975. She has since earned three other degrees from LSU, including a Ph.D. last year. She was the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship Winner for Louisiana in 1996 and received a Fulbright Memorial Fund Fellowship to study in Japan in 2001. She was Teacher of the Year in Caddo Parish in 1996-97 and is currently principal at First Baptist Church School.

"Pointe Coupee is a pretty small, rural parish but there are always some students from there who want to attend Northwestern," Mr. Bergeron said.

The ideal candidate for the scholarship would be "a model student who would be a lifelong learner, someone who wants to impact the future," Dr. Bergeron said. "We hope this small gift will get them off to a great start at a great university."

"This scholarship will provide a valuable opportunity for a student from a rural area to pursue one of two vocations that are vital to the future or our state," said Dr. Chris Maggio, director of Alumni and Development. "Recipients of this scholarship will hopefully use it to follow in the footsteps of the Bergerons by pursuing leadership roles in business and education in Louisiana."

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