Louisville Teen Awarded Inaugural Nate Morris Prize

Morris Foundation awards $10,000 scholarship to Eastern High School graduate
New scholarship established by Rubicon Founder and CEO

LEXINGTON, Ky., June 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Morris Foundation today announced that it has awarded its inaugural “Nate Morris Prize” to Mackenzie Pittman of Louisville’s Eastern High School Class of 2020. With the help of longtime faculty member Ginny Speaks, the award was first conceived at the Eastern High School Class of 1999 reunion in November 2019. The prize includes a $10,000 scholarship which will enable Pittman to attend the University of Louisville this fall.

“I am so proud to award the inaugural Nate Morris Prize to such a talented and engaged young woman like Mackenzie,” said Nate Morris, the founder and CEO of Rubicon, who established the Morris Foundation in 2012. “Mackenzie embodies the spirit of what makes Kentuckians great, and her accomplishments prove that excellence can be found anywhere in this great country.”

Pittman, a Hugh O’Brian Youth Ambassador, graduated from Eastern High School with a cumulative grade point average of 4.1. She was vice president of the student council, a member of National Honors Society and was active in the school’s cheer team, chamber choir, and spirit club. Pittman has been active in her community as a charity volunteer and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her graduating class. Pittman plans to study nursing at UofL.

The Nate Morris Prize is a one-time scholarship that can be used to attend any college or university in Kentucky. It is awarded through the Morris Foundation which promotes the cherished American value that a better life is possible to those who seek it. The prize will be awarded each year to the most outstanding graduating senior of Eastern High School in Louisville where Morris graduated as class president in 1999. As part of the application process, students address two essay questions, one of them being a response to Maya Angelou’s assertion that “making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life’.”

Nate Morris is the founder of Morris Industries, a Lexington, Ky.-based conglomerate that is reimagining the industrial economy. Morris’s passion to solve the environmental threats posed by global waste was pivotal in his founding of Rubicon, a software company focused on waste and recycling, and the signature asset of Morris Industries. A ninth-generation Kentuckian, Morris was born in Lexington and raised by a single mother with help from his grandmother and grandfather, an Army veteran and former President of United Auto Workers Local 862.

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/24f9ed90-1f55-466f-8d5c-e87d8c07ebc1