Madison Gentry has been named Richmond Community College’s 2025 Academic Excellence Award winner.
Courtesy photo | RichmondCC
HAMLET — Richmond Community College student Madison Gentry has been named the 2025 Academic Excellence Award winner.
Each college in the North Carolina Community College System selects a student for an Academic Excellence Award, which recognizes a student for outstanding academic achievement.
Gentry of Laurinburg has also been accepted into the C-STEP co-admission program with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She would not have thought this possible four years ago when she dropped out of high school due to overwhelming family responsibilities.
During her sophomore year, she transferred to a new high school. She was also caring for her ailing grandmother, and she took on most of the household chores for her parents while they worked long hours to maintain their small business during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. Madison was struggling emotionally and academically, so she dropped out of high school.
At her parents’ suggestion, Madison enrolled in the Adult Education program at RichmondCC and earned her GED in the spring of 2023 after intensive months of studying for the tests. Unfortunately, on the night of her graduation, her grandmother passed away.
The following fall semester, Madison enrolled in the Associate in Arts program at RichmondCC. Shortly into the semester, her mother suffered a back injury, and Madison was once again taking on the role of caretaker and managing the household for her family. However, she did not let this deter her from making her studies a priority. She has maintained a high grade-point average, and she joined the Student Government Association. She also helps with her parents’ business and does volunteer work in her community.
Madison will be pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Management and Society, which combines studies of business, psychology and ethics, at UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall of 2025.
“Madison is the epitome of drive and ambition. She completed her GED and has not let off the gas since,” said student advisor Tammy Little, who helped her apply for C-STEP. “She has a plan, and she is going for it.”