Feb. 7, 2007

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HOUSTON – A Houston business owner and 1983 Texas A&M University graduate has donated $25,000 to the Texas A&M Foundation to establish a memorial scholarship in honor of Ashton Glover, said Jody Ford, the Foundation's assistant director of development for agriculture.

Glover was a Clements High School junior in Fort Bend Independent School District whose kidnaping and murder received extensive local and national media coverage last summer.

The Ashton Glover Memorial Scholarship Fund will provide $1,250 to a Texas A&M-bound Fort Bend school district graduate who is seeking a degree in agriculture and has participated in either 4-H or FFA. 4-H is a youth program of Texas Cooperative Extension; FFA is an extracurricular agriculture club.

Michael Plank, chairman and chief executive officer of The Plank Companies Inc., said he and his wife followed the local media coverage of Glover's disappearance, the search for and discovery of her body, and the arrest of two classmates charged with her shooting.

The couple was "very touched by Ashton's story and the fact that such a sweet, innocent gal had her whole life ahead of her, and her hopes and dreams were shattered by such a senseless act," Plank said.

Plank, who was a member of the Corp of Cadets while an undergraduate at Texas A&M, said that while following the news coverage, he and his wife learned of Glover's lifelong dream to attend Texas A&M and become a veterinarian. That is why they established the scholarship in her honor, he said.

As a member and officer in Clements High School's FFA program, Glover competed with her pig, Lola, in the Fort Bend County Fair in 2005. She was raising a steer last summer for competition in the 2006 fair, said Carolyn Sue Smith, Ashton's mother.

"Ashton loved animals. She loved people, and she loved the Lord," Smith said.

The date of the most recent entry on Glover's MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/aglove , is Feb. 5, as friends continue to leave messages for her on this Internet networking service.

"She could walk in a room and light a place up," Smith said. "She always greeted you with a big hug."

Plank said that although he never met Ashton, news coverage made it clear to him and his wife that she was "a special young lady, exceptional student and dedicated FFA member who had lots of friends throughout Fort Bend County."

When a gift is given to establish a scholarship, the funds are allowed to grow for about 18 months before they will generate the scholarship, said Ford, the Foundation's assistant director. The first scholarship in Glover's name will be awarded in 2008.

"These types of gifts greatly aid students who may not otherwise be able to attend A&M," Ford said. "Scholarships help the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M in recruiting the best and the brightest, and in this case, students like Ashton, who had a lifetime love of different components of agriculture, such as raising animals and public speaking on agriculture related issues."

Smith said that she was humbled by the generous remembrance in her daughter's name.

"There are just not words to express how honored I am that someone would feel led to do something marvelous like that in Ashton's memory," she said.