{"id":3887,"date":"2009-08-07T09:17:44","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T13:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=3887"},"modified":"2019-07-18T16:26:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T20:26:22","slug":"motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorcycle Trip Kick Starts a Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He realized during that trip that he was about the same age as his mom when she returned to college. Lois returned to UCF in her forties to pursue a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/degree\/human-communication-ba\/\">degree in communications.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Somewhere out in Oregon, it struck me how incredibly determined she was to earn a degree,&#8221; Gary recalls. &#8220;She worked, raised five kids, and still had the passion to attend classes, study, and graduate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Determined to raise money to create a scholarship, Gary decided to auction off the dedication page to the third edition of his latest book, <em>Great American Motorcycle Tours<\/em>. The auction was successful and allowed him to start the process of creating the annual scholarship.<\/p>\n<p>Parents who return to college after raising children are the focus of the Lois Mercier McKechnie <a href=\"https:\/\/finaid.ucf.edu\/types-of-aid\/scholarships\/\">Working Parents&#8217; Scholarship<\/a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard enough completing college after high school &#8211; doing it later while working and raising kids is even harder,&#8221; says Gary.<\/p>\n<p>The scholarship is funded each year by Gary and his friends and family. The goal is to have it reach the endowed level so that it is self-sustaining. &#8220;I wanted to do this for my mom, but also for other working parents who have the same kind of passion she had to complete their college degrees,&#8221; says Gary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He realized during that trip that he was about the same age as his mom when she returned to college. Lois returned to UCF in her forties to pursue a degree in communications. &#8220;Somewhere out in Oregon, it struck me how incredibly determined she was to earn a degree,&#8221; Gary recalls. &#8220;She worked, raised five kids, and still had the&hellip;","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":4909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4163],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-3887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-scholarships"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Motorcycle Trip Kick Starts a Scholarship | University of Central Florida News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He realized during that trip that he was about the same age as his mom when she returned to college. Lois returned to UCF in her forties to pursue a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Motorcycle Trip Kick Starts a Scholarship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"He realized during that trip that he was about the same age as his mom when she returned to college. Lois returned to UCF in her forties to pursue a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"University of Central Florida News | UCF Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/UCF\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-07T13:17:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-18T20:26:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/20\/files\/2009\/08\/mckechnie3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"310\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stephen Toth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@UCF\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@UCF\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Stephen Toth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Stephen Toth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/baa0b35883fa2c0377062514b1dd78f3\"},\"headline\":\"Motorcycle Trip Kick Starts a Scholarship\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-08-07T13:17:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-18T20:26:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\"},\"wordCount\":217,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/20\/files\/2009\/08\/mckechnie3.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"scholarships\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2009\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/\",\"name\":\"Motorcycle Trip Kick Starts a Scholarship | University of Central Florida News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/motorcycle-trip-kick-starts-a-scholarship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/20\/files\/2009\/08\/mckechnie3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-08-07T13:17:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-18T20:26:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/baa0b35883fa2c0377062514b1dd78f3\"},\"description\":\"He realized during that trip that he was about the same age as his mom when she returned to college. 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