Rita may do same thing: Katrina disrupts Dexter grad's medical school scholarship plans

Matt Ramsey

What if you had a scholarship worth up to $300,000 to the school of your choice -- and you couldn't use it at the school of your choice?

That's pretty much what happened to a 1999 graduate of Dexter High School, Matt Ramsey. "I got a scholarship for $50,000 a year from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation for up to six years," he said in a Tuesday morning interview.

Ramsey received the scholarship while earning his undergraduate degree in Chemistry and Art History at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla. The scholarships, of which the Foundation awarded 76 for the 2005-06 academic year, may be used at any graduate program in the country for students who show exceptional promise.

Ramsey said he had passed up the opportunity to apply for the 2004-05 academic year, "but I didn't think I had the time or the experience necessary," he said.

So Ramsey said that, after an internship, he'd applied for the 2005-06 academic year, and was accepted."The scholarship is for any accredited graduate study program in the world," he said.

For example, he said, a friend he had met at the scholarship awards ceremony in the nation's capital would be attending the London school of Economics to study economics Ramsey added he was using the scholarship attend medical school, and at the same time earn a master's degree in public health, at Tulane University, in New Orleans.

Oops.

"Actually, I'd already been accepted at Tulane medical school when I applied for the scholarship," he said. "So I deferred my acceptance for a year."

Ramsey started at Tulane in early August, and had been studying for three weeks when the hurricane hit. So he relocated to the current home of his parents, at Bee Branch, Ark.

"The Friday before the Monday that the hurricane hit," Ramsey said, "we were out with some upper classmen.

"And the weather report came on at 11 o'clock at night, and the latest forecast was [for] a direct hit on New Orleans."

A veteran of hurricanes during his years at the New College of Florida, Ramsey said he had warned his friends classes would be cancelled in advance of the hurricane. "I know that when these things are projected that the schools tend to take them seriously," he said.

So he booked a flight to Tampa, Fla.-- now out of danger from Katrina -- to visit friends from his undergraduate days.

Since Tulane is non-functional as a facility for learning, now what? "They [Tulane administration authorities] have reopened the [medical] school in Houston," Ramsey said, "at the Texas Medical center, and at Baylor College of Medicine.

"It's so huge that it's just about the only place that can accommodate an entire [extra] medical school."

So Ramsey's plan is to move to Houston to attend the Tulane medical school at Baylor -- "provided [Hurricane] Rita doesn't wreak havoc down there!"

As of 4 p.m. Central Daylight Time, Hurricane Rita was packing maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour, heading west into the Gulf of Mexico (more-or-less in the general direction of Houston) and expected to strengthen by 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Ramsey said Tulane authorities had figured to reopen the campus by January, but much would depend on how the cleanup went. In any case, he said, hospitality at Baylor was generous in the extreme. "Baylor has totally welcomed us with open arms," he said.

Ramsey said he had been exploring "other options" given the total transferability of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship. "What I was going to do was get my master's in public health first, somewhere else," he said, "and then get my M.D. when Tulane reopens."

He said he'd received some offers along those lines, from UCLA, the University of Arkansas, and the University of North Carolina, but decided to stay with his classmates and attend Tulane-at-Baylor.

Ramsey added the evacuation from katrina marked the second time he had been obliged to flee a hurricane. "I've actually been living down there since July 1," he said, "and Dennis was projected to hit close to there -- so they shut down the school then, too."

Jack Kent Cooke, who died in 1997, owned numerous TV stations and newspapers, but is probably best known as owner of both the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and the Washington Redskins football team. He also owned the Chrysler Building in New York

Cooke left most of his fortune to the Foundation bearing his name.

gexelby@dailystatesman.com