Ruel Lowe Editorial : The PALAS Challenge.....The road to progress and prosperity is paved with progressive ideas and vision.

Ruel Lowe, RBN Editorial

The PALAS Challenge.
Ruel E. Lowe, Editorial- 9/17/15

The road to progress and prosperity is paved with progressive ideas and vision. 
A great example of this; is PALAS, from out of a tragic incident the idea of PALAS germinated, and has now come to fruition! 
Being a student of history, I would be remiss if I did not lay the historical back ground of PALAS!
A very talented young lady, who created/made jingles for the SSSJ (Sultry Sunday Slow Jamz), program on the RBN, was brutally murdered and dismembered, by what had to be some mentally deranged fiends! The host of the program (Rula Brown) was so distraught and dismayed on receiving the tragic news that he decided to take some positive action!
It was then that the idea blossomed in his mind, and he decided to make good out of evil! The idea in question was: Why not start a scholarship fund in memory of the unfortunate young lady, Vanessa Campbell. He contacted a few members of the RBN Family and floated the idea among them, and everybody was firmly on board!
Thus PALAS {The Peace and Love Academic Scholarship} came into existence! The rest is history!
Form the granting of roughly a half a dozen scholarships in the beginning, to ninety five a few days ago, We can see great progress have been made and hopefully will continue, by the hard work, perseverance, cooperation, and generosity of the RBN family and many others.
But like everything else PALAS do have challenges and issues. Being a person who considers himself as one who reasons, a questioner, an observer, one who is a student of logic and cognitive thinking, I am therefore issuing the PALAS Challenge(s)! 
a. Since those granted scholarships, are usually at the top of their classes.
They should be required to pledge to mentor a backward or failing student in their class or institution.
b. Since the scholarships are awarded to extremely brilliant students! I challenge the selection panel, to consider students who might not be very gifted, but who through hard work, diligence, and perseverance raise their grades from failing to close to the top of their class! And reserve about 10% of the scholarships for these types of students! 
Since we are well aware the brilliance like beauty is not found in the majority!
c. All scholarship recipients should be required to be socially responsible, and should pledge to give back to the community in some form, either by granting scholarships in their names or some other service, when they achieve their goals!
There are many more challenges, but these are the main ones that come to mind!
Now for my idea of the day!
Since we as a people have our financial challenges, and we sometimes find it difficult to come up with substantial donations! I am suggesting to Rula, he get/buy/have donated to him some, candy jars. On these jars place a PALAS label/sticker, then sell then to the family so they can store their spare change and dollar bills in them, then after a six to nine month period send the collected money to PALAS!