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Todd Craft, with Cardinal Chevrolet, awarded Knott County student Brittany Back with a scholarship for her perfect attendance throughout her school career.

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Cardinal Chevrolet in Hazard recently awarded three high school seniors, including one from Knott County, a scholarship for never missing a day of school.

Todd Craft with Cardinal said that they were contacted by Brittany Back, a senior from Knott County Central, about applying for a program for students with perfect attendance through General Motors.

“You have to have a dealership represented in your county, and there is not one in Knott County so we decided to just give her a scholarship from Cardinal instead of through GM,” said Craft.

Back had gone from kindergarten through graduation without missing a single day of school. Upon being contacted by Back and deciding to give away the scholarship, Craft said that the employees at Cardinal Chevrolet wanted to make sure the scholarship was given away fairly.

“We had done it in Knott County intentionally and we didn’t want to leave anyone else out,” said Craft.

They began calling other districts throughout the area and found that only three districts had students accomplish this feat.

“We called Perry Central, Hazard, Breathitt County, Jackson City, we called several different places and there were only three,” said Craft.

Knott County, Clay County and Leslie County all had students that had not missed a day of school. These students were each given a check for $500. In one of these counties, they actually had two students but made the decision to only give one scholarship per district, and based the decision of what student on the one with the highest GPA.

According to Craft, they are still in the deciding phase as to if they are going to continue this scholarship annually, but they are considering it. He said that if they do, they will not require students to apply.

“We would probably do like we did this year and just contact the local schools if it is something that we see continuing to do,” said Craft.

All three of the students are enrolled in college, however, the money does not necessarily have to go towards tuition.

“They did have to enroll in college. We did have to get their transcripts to show that they were going to schools,” said Craft. “The money that we gave they could really spend at their own choice.”

Craft said that he feels what they students did by not missing a day of school is important and helped them get as much as they could from school.

“It is like anything you do, the more you do it the better you are at it,” he added.