Dental Foundation, Scholarships

Fussells Establish Scholarship to Benefit DDS Students

Dr. Randy Fussell, DDS ’90, and his wife, Mrs. Bobby Fussell, recently established a new scholarship with the Dental Foundation of North Carolina to benefit DDS students at the UNC School of Dentistry.

The Dr. Randy and Mrs. Bobby Fussell Scholarship Fund is expected to be issued for the first time in the 2016-17 academic year. It will supply financial support to one or more DDS students who show both strong academic performance and also a financial need.

They said they established this scholarship because of the generosity shown to them during their education. Both Dr. and Mrs. Fussell benefitted from scholarships while in college. Mrs. Fussell was on a veterans scholarship while receiving her undergraduate education, and Dr. Fussell was nominated for and later named a Board of Governors Dental Scholar.

“Being a Board of Governors Dental Scholar was an incredible thing, because it meant that I got to graduate from UNC with no debt from dental school,” said Dr. Fussell. “We would both have graduated in a whole different place without the financial support we received while getting our educations in Chapel Hill. Because of that generosity, we did not have the burden of educational debt when we finished school.”

The Fussells have a history of giving back financially to support education in North Carolina. Several years ago, they endowed a scholarship at N.C. State University, where Mrs. Fussell’s father attended, to benefit a Columbus County high school student. In addition, they’d been giving annually to scholarship support at the UNC School of Dentistry.

“We both realize that someone was kind enough along the way to set aside money to help us when we were young and in need of financial support,” said Dr. Fussell. “We always had intentions of giving back because it’s the least we can do to pay it forward. We’re grateful and we wanted to show that through investing in the next generation of college students.”