Tall, toned and clean-shaven, Juneau-Douglas High School senior Cody Weldon already has the physique of a United States Marine Officer.<\/p>\n
He’s about to add the education of one, too.<\/p>\n
Sgt. James White, a United States Marines Corps recruiter from Anchorage, was on hand at a JDHS assembly Tuesday to recognize Weldon as a recipient of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. (ROTC) scholarship. Weldon stood beside Sgt. White at center court as the officer awarded him with a ceremonial $180,000 check. Sgt. White knew Weldon’s track record in school, athletics and community-life made him a good fit for the scholarship.<\/p>\n
“He had great character, he was influential in the community, and he was a great athlete, and I was like, ‘Holy smokes, this guy might have the potential to win a scholarship that not many do,’” White told the students.<\/p>\n
Naval ROTC scholarship applicants are evaluated by a board of Marine officers.<\/p>\n
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be in the military,” Weldon said. “The Marine Corps was the option I went toward because my grandpa was a Marine and when you think of the military, and you think of the best, you think of the Marine Corps, and I always strive to be the best, so it was kind of a no brainer.<\/p>\n
Weldon plans to put the money toward Oregon State University — the only college in Oregon with an the Naval ROTC program. The mission of the Naval ROTC is to “ train college students for leadership roles as commissioned officers in the United States Navy and Marine Corps.”<\/p>\n
Weldon was the state champion for the 220-pound weight class at the 2016 high school state championships in December.<\/p>\n
When asked if he’ll be wrestling for the Beavers, Weldon said he’s still weighing that option.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see, that’s a little bit up in the air, but I’ll probably do something along the line of wrestling,” he said.<\/p>\n
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n
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Tall, toned and clean-shaven, Juneau-Douglas High School senior Cody Weldon already has the physique of a United States Marine Officer. He’s about to add the education of one, too. Sgt. James White, a United States Marines Corps recruiter from Anchorage, was on hand at a JDHS assembly Tuesday to recognize Weldon as a recipient of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":22526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22525"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}