Thank you, Mr. Terry

It’s 2019. The sweat on my palms is distracting. I wipe it against my polyester houndstooth trousers, and I'm starting to think I forgot to take the staple off from where the thrift store tag was attached. I feel the too-big shoes flop off of my heel with every step. This is the only nice pair of shoes that I own. I only ever wear them to church, since I can wear low-top Converse with my high school uniform.

An employee of the Terry Foundation, Franco, leads me to the room where I will interview. In one hand, he holds a manila file with my photo on it. I try to act like I’m not looking at it, but I keep noticing my own blushed and nervous expression obscured by his thumb. 

With his other hand on the doorknob, Franco tells me not unkindly, “You don’t need to shake anyone’s hand. There will be a seat for you on the other side of the table.” 

These facts seem disjointed to me, and the words leave my ears as quickly as he says them. He opens the door and a panel of six interviewers stand with a rustle, adjusting their skirts or fidgeting with the buttons on their blazer as Franco introduces me. 

I feel awkward with my hands, and not sure what else to do, I reach out to each of them with a handshake, immediately hoping this decision doesn't cost me.

For half an hour, they ask me questions about my academics, my parents’ divorce, my mom’s illness, my brother’s grades and incarceration. I ask them to repeat the questions when the blood rushing in my head drowns out their gently prodding voices. I focus on the space just above their heads, tracing over the familiar Dallas skyline, backlit by the sun.

I trace the same skyline again, half a decade later, serving as a panelist alongside two of the same people who interviewed me. We’re deliberating over which two candidates will be our alternates for this year based on their involvements in high school and academic standings. 

It’s now my duty as the youngest panelist, the “rookie,” to escort the candidate into the room. I’ve gone from the hot seat of the interviewee to the other side of the table, accompanied by colleagues, mentors, and friends. This is the lifecycle of a Terry Scholar.

The Terry Scholarship, named after Howard Terry, began at the University of Texas in 1986. The Terry Scholarship remains the largest private scholarship in the state of Texas, having assisted nearly 7,000 scholars through over $370 million in scholarship dollars since its inception. 

Howard Terry, the founder and namesake of the philanthropic foundation, was born in 1916 in Milam County, Texas. He attended the University of Texas on a football scholarship. 

“Mr. Terry always identified the receipt of his football scholarship as one of the most important events of his life,” reads the Foundation’s website. “This gift eventually inspired the creation of the Terry Foundation, which could provide a college education for students who (like Mr. Terry himself) may not have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams otherwise.”

Terry Scholars often refer to themselves as Terrys in brief because we see ourselves as an extension of the Terry family. Indeed, when asked by applicants, candidates, and their families what makes the Terry experience special to them, many Terrys will say that the scholarship gave them a family.

This weekend, Texas Woman’s University will host their annual Scholarship Invitational. Eighty candidates from all over the state of Texas will travel to campus or join a Zoom call with faculty to interview for one of TWU’s Distingushed Scholarships. Thirty of these will be nominated to interview with members of the Terry Foundation next month in Dallas. Around thirteen of these will be awarded the scholarship at TWU, joining the incoming class of Terry freshman who will push the number of Terry scholars just over the 7,000 mark.

Not long after that, Terrys will celebrate Give Back Day on March 22, a day that was commemorated in Houston as Howard and Nancy Terry Day in 2011. Terrys  far and wide will honor their commitment of “giving back” to the Foundation through community service, scholarship donations, and sharing their stories of how this opportunity changed their life. My own LinkedIn feed will be covered with all kinds of heartfelt stories that all end with the words, "Thank you, Mr. Terry."

I never had the chance to meet Howard Terry. He died in 2012 after a long life as of military involvement, business pursuits, and travel. I am always delighted to hear stories of him from Terry scholars from cohorts of the ‘80s and ‘90s. He always seems grandfatherly to me in a way.

Howard Terry was a white man from Texas. As such, I have certain assumptions about his political affiliations. He served in an era of the American Military that invaded the Philippines in 1944, a time when my great-grandparents, Filipino natives, were residing near Manila. My grandmother would have been a toddler at the time, and I can’t help but imagine Howard Terry crossing paths with my own family, an antagonist in their eyes.

But Terrys, as I know them, are one of the most diverse groups of people I have ever known. I have had the pleasure of working with, interviewing, and being interviewed by Terrys who are queer, are refugees, have incarcerated parents, are single parents, survived domestic abuse, are first-generation, are immigrants. 

The Terrys I know come from different financial standings, family sizes, and religious and political backgrounds. We study different things, support different causes, listen to different music, but we’re all united by the fact that this scholarship allowed us to do something that would have otherwise been impossible for us: gotten a degree.

It was through the Terry Scholarship that college even became an option for me, and it’s through the Terry Scholarship that the same will be true for thousands more scholars through the next many years. For that, I have to say: thank you, Mr. Terry.