Dr. Carol Thompson, long-time faculty member in the Department of Applied Communication, recently set up an endowed scholarship in memory of her son, Lance Eric Thompson. This scholarship was created for students who are full- or part-time students majoring in Applied Communication and have an interest in the visual, literary, or performing arts. Plans are for this scholarship to be offered for students beginning in Fall 2019.
Lance Eric Thompson was an artist almost from the moment he was born. He started to draw the first time he held a pencil when he scribbled images of his family on paper. Over the years, this ability was refined and perfected. By high school, he was in the Gifted and Talented program. He had always had access to a computer and began at age 6 to design basic computer games; in junior high school, he wrote grading programs for his teachers. After work at local colleges in Arkansas, he moved to Memphis and became part of an artistic group known as Superman Damn Fool. They painted huge canvasses with nontraditional materials like house paint, blended with other mediums. His individual works were all sold to collectors in the area. He continued his college by going to the Art Institute of Phoenix, Arizona, where he majored in animation and computer graphics. He returned to Little Rock to be with his son, then two years old, managing to visit him often from the job he obtained as a computer analyst for FED-EX corporation in Memphis.
Lance learned to combine his proficiency with art, with his proficiency with computers, and was aiming toward a career of training at FED-EX. After one successful training session he said, “Even if you have all the talent and intelligence in the world, it doesn’t help if you can’t communicate with an audience.” On the brink of great success, Lance succumbed to cancer at an early age in 2018. Loved by many, three words that describe Lance are funny (he won the “funniest award” in middle school), brilliant, and kind.
To apply for this scholarship, students need to complete the university’s scholarship application using the Trojan SMART application (see https://ualr.edu/scholarships/trojan-smart-instructions-for-applying/), and write a paragraph about their view of communication in relation to ethics and the arts (visual, literary, or performing). Academic accomplishment will be considered, in the awarding of this scholarship.
If you would like to give to this scholarship opportunity for students, you can go to the drop-down menu at the link here.
