Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On Monday evening, May 22, 2023 in a humble ceremony held at the Troy Parks and Recreation on Enzor Road, the Timothy Larance McSwain Memorial Scholarship Foundation endowed seven well-deserving, high school seniors with $500 scholarships presented by the Foundation’s Founder Sharon McSwain-Holland who stated that the Foundation was founded out of grief, referring to the loss of her son, Timothy Larance McSwain, who was left brain-dead after a tragic car accident in 2015.

Larance, as he was more commonly known, was a 2009 graduate of Charles Henderson High School and a 2015 graduate of Troy University. “He was a giver,” she told the small, intimate audience and “he was inquisitive about life and he loved to read

McSwain-Holland detailed how a conversation with Larance, while renewing his driver’s license, made her confident regarding the decision to donate his organs to other needy recipients. Larance’s heart, liver, both kidneys, and corneas were harvested and bestowed to other individuals throughout the country who were blessed with a better quality of life.

In 2018, one of the recipients of Larance’s kidneys requested to meet McSwain-Holland. As an Ambassador for the Legacy of Hope (Organ Donation), McSwain-Holland and her daughter, Deizah Holland, were blessed to have met the recipient. The meeting left them assured that the decision was indeed the right one. 

The scholarship recipients and their parents enjoyed refreshments as they attentively listened to the purpose and intent of their gift. The seven seniors represent the 24th recipients of this scholarship since Larance’s passing in 2015.

McSwain-Holland stated that, in giving his organs, Larance continues to live on and be a blessing to others as does the giving of the scholarships in memoriam of his life. She encouraged the college-bound students to finish what they started and to never forget their why. 

The seven recipients are Malachi R. Everett, Pike County High School; Khloe Lampley, Pike County High School; Aeriel R. Frazier, Charles Henderson High School; Tatum “Tate” Gardner, Pike Liberal Arts School; Haleigh Qualls, Goshen High School; Stephen Holbert, valedictorian, Charles Henderson, High School; and Ciara Denaye Laird, New Life Christian Academy.