In Their Words: Achieving New Levels

This new series In Their Words highlights our past recipients of the Moton Family Challenge Scholarship. Follow us as we provide an update on how the scholarship and your support has helped these young scholars advance their education.

Timothy Eppes II intends for his future video games to take the world by storm. As he works to do just this, majoring in Computer Science at Longwood University, he is also using his coding skills to help those in his community.

Eppes, a 2018 recipient of the Robert Russa Moton Museum Family Challenge Scholarship and a junior at Longwood, said video games had a meaningful impact on him from a young age.

“I’ve always had an admiration for video games and knowing that wanted to pursue a career in creating them,” Eppes said. “I thought that computer science would be the first step to do so.”

As a Computer Science major, Eppes can create programs through code, a skill set that is in high demand in the information and technology fields and a venue for endless possibilities.

“The aspects of the major that I like is understanding how different code affects different programs and how code is used in our everyday life,” Eppes said.

Code is a fundamental aspect of most, if not all, modern technologies. Everything from making a social media post, to visiting a website, even the mechanisms of many new vehicles and traffic light operations use code. Code can bring stories to life through animation and video games, the field Eppes is pursuing.

“My goal for implementing my skills after graduation is to create a few codes for miniature video game projects to be picked up by a video game company,” Eppes said.

Eppes said the support he has received from the Family Challenge Scholarship has been meaningful to him, in more ways than one.

The scholarship funds have helped enable him to pursue his education. Receiving the scholarship has been meaningful to him and his family as his grandmother and aunt were students at Robert Russa Moton High School and experienced the closure of public schools in Prince Edward County.

The Family Challenge Scholarship, Eppes said, “has allowed me to further my education in the past few years and I am forever grateful for that.”

As Eppes pursues his career, he will be using his skills to benefit a medical practice in the Farmville area.

Next summer, Eppes will be using his coding and computer science skills to work with a Farmville-based optometry office, creating a specific program that can be used in the office.

The Family Challenge Scholarships are available to direct lineal descendants of a student or students denied a public education or displaced by the public school closings in Prince Edward County between the years 1959-1964.

To learn more about the scholarship program, or how to apply, visit https://motonmuseum.org/signature-programs/moton-family-challenge-scholarship.

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