Student success was highlighted on Thursday at the Southeast College campus in Estevan, as over $37,000 was handed out in scholarships and bursaries to successful applicants.

"It's the favorite day of the year for a lot of us here, just because we get to celebrate student success and recognize our supporters, and that's what it's all about," stated Dave Harazny, the Manager of College Advancement and more affectionately known as 'The Scholarship Guy'.

"The awards themselves reward the students for their hard work and their success. We just want to support them as they continue on into the next phase of their life, which is the work force."

Overall, 164 applications were sent in, and a little over half were selected to received monetary support. Those then are presented at the College's locations in Weyburn and Estevan, as well as their annual Swing for Scholarships event in Moosomin. In total, $184,000 was, and will be, handed out to deserving post secondary students.

Nathaniel King (right) is presented the City of Estevan bursary by City Councillor Dennis Moore.

The most prestigious, however, was the Al Yeaman award.

"That is an award that is sponsored by the College in honor of Al Yeaman, our first principal. It is our premier award, it's very meaningful to the recipient as it does cover full tuition and books. We're very happy to have his (Al's) son, Jim, to present that award every year, and it's kind of the highlight of our awards event. It can go to a student at any one of our locations, and this year it happened to be Estevan, in our Office Administration program."

Christy McNeil was chosen as this year's recipient of the award, to the tune of $4,130, and she was quite happy to be one of the lucky few to dump a common burden off her shoulders.

"It feels pretty good, being able to go into my career and not have to worry about paying back my student loans," she said.

Christy has goals of obtaining an office job once she complete her schooling. In the meantime, she'll be expanding her horizons a little farther.

"I'm hoping to go on to take medical terminology and a couple other things, maybe go into the law part of it as well."

Click here to see the full list of scholarship/bursary recipients.

The award presenters and students gathered for a group photo.