CHAPEL HILL – Nathan John Pait, a senior at Village Christian Academy in Fayetteville, has been selected as one of 66 to receive the Morehead-Cain Scholarship from the University of North Carolina.
Pait is the son of Bladen County natives Kevin and Michelle Pait of Fayetteville, the grandson of Donald and Janet Dowless and Johnny and Carnelle Pait — all of Bladenboro.
The Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the U.S. and founded at the first public university in the country, recently announced its class of 2021.
Pait is student body president at Village Christian and has been involved in organizing fundraisers, community-service events and student experiences, such as homecoming week. He is also a member of the varsity football team, mock trial team and editor-in-chief of the school yearbook. In addition he loves to act in school productions and community theater. Nathan is interested in studying biology to eventually attend medical school.
The Morehead-Cain Scholarship covers all expenses for four years of undergraduate study at UNC-Chapel Hill. It also features a distinctive program of summer enrichment experiences designed to support students as they learn and grow. During the course of four summers, scholar s will have opportunities to complete an outdoor leadership course, commit themselves to public service in the U.S. or abroad, conduct research at sites around the world and gain experience in private enterprise.
As set out in the program’s founding documents, selection criteria for the Morehead-Cain are leadership, moral force of character, academic achievement and physical vigor. Morehead-Cain recipients are chosen solely on the basis of merit and accomplishment.
Since 2000, 14 Morehead-Cain Scholars have won Rhodes Scholarships to England’s Oxford University, one of the world’s most competitive and prestigious awards for graduate study. Since the first Morehead Scholars graduated from Carolina in 1957, 31 of UNC’s 34 Rhodes Scholars have been Morehead-Cain Scholars.