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Hurliman Scholarship Rick Lane's Life has Centered Around Leadership and Service to Others
To find a more achievement-laden high school senior resume than that of Richard A. (Rick) Lane’s would be an imposing proposition.
A 4.4 GPA student at Centennial High School and recipient of 7 academic letters, Rick has excelled in Advanced Placement as well as concurrent enrollment courses. He is a 4-year member of Future Business Leaders of America who twice qualified for state, a 2-year member of National Honor Society and a state qualifier in Speech and Debate.
Both the Newman Club and World Language Honor Society have benefited from Rick’s membership, as have the D60 Student Stakeholders Group and Online School Task Force.
A 4-year letter winner in Golf, Rick qualified for state three of those years and served as captain of the team this year. He also lettered a year in swimming.
In the eyes of his fellow Bulldogs, Rick is a shining star, having been voted Most Outgoing Male Senior and Winter Formal King, and one-half of the school’s Most Dynamic Duo. Centennial administrators pegged Rick as a Top 30 Senior.
Since the 4th Grade, Rick has been an integral part of the Pueblo County Nomads 4-H Club, serving in key leadership positions and collecting a host of awards while donating countless hours to projects and undertakings along the way. He also participated in the Pueblo County 4-H Globetrotter Club.
His service to community is commendable. In addition to the many volunteer hours committed through 4-H, Rick lent his services to the Socially Distanced Hug project, helping to raise and then deliver 64 plants in hand-made pots to alleviate the loneliness and isolation experienced by the elderly and shut-ins due to the pandemic.
As part of Mask Up Dogs, Rick used his sewing technique to create nearly 400 facial masks, which were subsequently delivered to the Centennial student body in the Fall of 2020.
An active member of Holy Family Parish, Rick serves on the Holy Family Parish Youth Group and volunteers in various capacities.
The top slot in Rick’s resume, however, is reserved for a role that holds a special place in his heart and in his life: Chairman of the Arianne Creative Arts Scholarship: Because Every Moment Counts.
Created to honor the memory of Rick’s sister Arianne, the fund annually distributes a $1,000 scholarship to a deserving Pueblo graduating senior.
“Although my parents retired from education jobs when I was 9 and have spent an inordinate amount of quality time with me, my sister is the person I admire the most, and the person who taught me more about being a good person than any other,” Rick said.
Diagnosed with cancer at age 4 – more than a decade before Rick was born – Arianne Lane began an inspirational medical odyssey that was documented by People magazine and Dateline NBC and caught the attention of musical giants Alabama and Garth Brooks and the Colorado Rockies.
“In 1994, at diagnosis, she was given a 0 to 5 percent chance of survival,” Rick explained. “And yet with the help of modern medicine, inner strength, pure tenacity and unwavering faith, she survived for an additional 25 years.
“Not independent enough as a disabled adult to live on her own, she lived in our family home and was the center of our life and defined our family.”
In 2019, when Arianne was 29 and Rick 16, the cancer returned, leading to heart failure.
“Although her passing has created a hole in my heart and I miss her terribly – she was like having a second mom – I will never forget the life lessons she gifted me,” Rick said. “During the time we shared as siblings, she taught me how to live life with quiet courage and how to live intentionally.
“She taught me how a person with superior character lives. She modeled for me daily how to overcome adversity, how to accept what life hands a person and instead of dwelling on the negative to appreciate the positive. She taught me how to celebrate life and to look always forward.”
To fund the scholarship, Rick and his friends that comprise the Scholarship Fund Board raise money by sharing Arianne’s love of creating hand-made greeting cards.
“Arianne had a small hand-made card business that she ran out of our basement, which gave her pride, purpose and a little spending money,” Rick said. “Our committee sells the card inventory she had on hand at craft shows, local businesses, word-of-mouth and online at ETSY.
“Everything earned goes to the scholarship fund.”
Since Arianne’s passing in 2019, the scholarship committee has raised $12,000, with the first $1,000 scholarship awarded in May 2020.
“Eventually, we will run out of the cards hand-made by Arianne so, during the past year, I coordinated, with the scholarship committee, friends and family to help make more of Arianne’s designs and to also sell the cards that we made,” Rick said. “I am committed to continuing fundraising until the $1,000 annual scholarship is endowed
“By ensuring this scholarship is endowed, it will help keep the door to her extraordinary life open.”
It is not difficult to see the significant impression Rick’s application made on the Hurliman Scholarship Foundation, which awarded him the full 4-year $100,000 endowment: an award he plans to use to attend The University of Denver, with a goal of being accepted into the university’s 6-Year Law program.
“I believe there were a multitude of different factors and variables that led to me being named a Hurliman Scholar,” Rick explained. “I was very involved with Pueblo 4-H for 8 years, which is something I take pride in. During my tenure in 4-H is where my involvement with community service was really initiated. I began doing community service in every organization I was a part of or could be a part of, and a lot of it is due to how being a part 4-H groomed me towards having a legitimate and genuine desire to give back.”
On April 10, Rick was interviewed by the representatives of the Hurliman Scholarship Foundation and informed that he would be notified as to whether he had been selected by April 25.
“I received a letter addressed from the Hurliman Foundation on April 15: 10 days earlier than what I was expecting,” he said. “I was immediately filled with fear, thinking it was too quick of a turnaround time for it to be a letter notifying me that I won.
“However, when I opened the envelope with my parents sitting around me, and saw on the first line ‘Congratulations,’' and then a few lines down saying I received the full $100,000, our household was filled with complete euphoria and gratefulness. This was the moment I 100 percent decided on attending The University of Denver.”
As an underclassman at Centennial, Rick was motivated by the academic achievement and success he witnessed in the lives of Bulldogs older than him.
“I was highly motivated and inspired my freshman and sophomore year by the upperclassmen that I witnessed achieving what I wanted to someday achieve,” he said. “Transitioning into an upperclassmen my junior year, I was motivated by the past upperclassmen to fill their shoes, or even surpass them.
“The impact that the dedicated upperclassmen had on me when I was younger is something I owe a large amount of my success to, and I truly wanted to be able to have the same impact on the underclassmen during my junior and senior year.”
For inspiration, Rick often looked at the Centennial “Wall of Scholars” featuring those Bulldogs who ranked high in their class and received scholarship funds.
“Seeing the kids I looked up to achieving such impressive amounts of scholarships, I knew I wanted to make it on that wall my senior year,” he said.
Rick also credited his teachers and administrators for playing a role in his success-filled 4-year career as a Bulldog.
“My counselor Mrs. Odell has been a diligent advocate for me throughout my high school years, and my teachers have prepared me well to be to be accepted to a university as prestigious as DU,” added Rick, who will graduate in the top 20 of his class.