Over $150,000 in scholarships was awarded on the Bakersfield College campus at the third annual Kern County Historically Black College & University Leadership Conference and Recruitment Fair on Feb. 8.

Many high school students in the Kern County High School District and its outlying areas attended the event. All students were welcome to attend “regardless of race, color or creed,” said Allison Perkins, committee member of the HBCU.

Over 25 colleges and universities were present to recruit, provide on-site admissions, and to award scholarships.

There were many workshops geared toward helping students prepare for college and instruction on admissions, enrollment, and financial assistance.

“We all have the same goal of encouraging every high school student to go on to further education,” said BC President William Andrews.

Jennifer Harris, a BC student ambassador, said, “We had financial aid workshops so they learned how to pay for college. We took them to the computer labs in the counseling center to use their computers, so they could learn how to do online registration. Some of them took assessment tests today, and a lot of them learned where the center was and made appointments to come back and test.”

A career information fair was held in the Fireside Room next to the cafeteria with 14 local companies in attendance.

Food was provided free of charge to the students and guests by BC and was prepared by Chef Alex Gomez, BC’s food services manager. One thousand sandwiches and cookies were made for the event.

Local radio station HOT 94.1 provided musical entertainment at the request of Perkins on behalf of the students.

Approximately 550 to 600 students were in attendance according to Kevin Keyes, a community counselor at Liberty High School and co-chairman of the HBCU committee.

“The numbers were smaller than last year, but the quality was good,” said Keyes.

According to Keyes, next year’s conference will be held at California State University Bakersfield and will return to BC in 2009. “We look forward to coming back to this venue again,” said Keyes.

“I think that last year was probably better because they had more schools, more options and a little more help,” said Jenica Kent, a Liberty High School senior who also attended last year’s conference.

At this year’s conference Kent was awarded a scholarship and accepted to Dillard University.

“I think it is a good program to get students, especially African-Americans, involved in college because a lot of the population of African-Americans aren’t involved in that type of thing,” said Kent.

“It was a really good experience. It was something positive for our life to help us out,” said Julian Roberts, also a senior at Liberty High School. Roberts went on to say that he would be attending BC.