By Annabeth Miiler,
ShowMe Times Editor

A Dexter native has received an educational grant from an international women’s organization.

Tommie Love was recently awarded a $3,000 scholarship from P.E.O. Sisterhood, local chapter CP. Love is the daughter of Tom and Carmen Love of Dexter. She currently lives in St. Louis. She is just six weeks away from completing her bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN) degree from Chamberlain College of Nursing in St. Louis.

Love received the scholarship award at the local group’s meeting on Thursday.

Love has long had a servant’s heart – working as a doula and coaching women through childbirth and working with other programs in the St. Louis region. A mother with two children, she started this educational path toward a nursing degree as a “nontraditional” student.

“I started five years ago,” she said. “I was working and went to school part-time. I went to Meramec Community College to get all my sciences in. I was a psychology major first time around, and I only had to take biology for science. I’m so old my biology had expired!”

Love said that after a long hiatus from classes, some classes like biology need to be taken a second time around. And so she started at St. Louis Community College at Meramec and took advantage of the community college’s lower tuition. She attended Meramec part-time for three years, and has been attending Chamberlain full time for a little over two years.

“And I graduate in six weeks – I am so excited,” she said enthusiastically. She said the award from P.E.O. will help pay for that final semester.

P.E.O. ((Philanthropic Educational Organization) was founded on January 21, 1869, by seven students at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. One of the organization’s primary missions is promoting educational opportunities for women. In fact, the P.E.O. Sisterhood proudly sponsors no less than six international philanthropies, including ownership of Cottey College in Nevada, Mo.