Aviation Major Receives First-Ever Top Gun Scholarship
Rebekah Goebel, a sophomore aviation major at Delaware State University, has become the first-ever recipient of the newly established Top Gun Scholarship.
As Top Gun recipient, Ms. Goebel has received a $1,000 check that will go toward her flight expenses that come with pursuing a Professional Pilot concentration in the Aviation Degree Program at DSU.
The Top Gun Scholarship will be annually awarded to a DSU aviation student who best demonstrate the qualities exhibited by the famed Tuskegee Airman in World War II. Those values include academic excellence, flying ability, love of country, as well as a dedication and loyalty to DSU and its Aviation Program,
Ms. Goebel is a 2014 graduate of Woodbridge High School. She currently has a 4.0 grade point average, recently obtained her Private Pilot License and is in the process of completing her instrument rating.
She serves as a volunteer chief flight instructor assistant, while at the same works off-campus jobs to help cover the cost of her education.
The aviation major originally began her academic journey in 2014 as an English major at Hunter College in New York City. However, she decided to return to Delaware and while in the process of reviewing her higher education options, she attended a Wings & Wheels event in Georgetown in the summer 2015. There she met John Sherman, chief flight instructor at DSU’s Aviation Program, as well as Joe F. Edwards, a NASA astronaut.
“In meeting them, I was inspired to pursue aviation,” Ms. Goebel said.
She is now looking to use her future DSU aviation degree in the U.S. Coast Guard. She has already applied to the Coast Guard’s College Student Pre-commissioning Initiative, and if accepted in that program, she will do part-time active duty while completing her DSU aviation degree during her junior and senior years.
In addition to her scholarship, Ms. Goebel will receive a pair of DSU Gold Top Gun Wings at an awards ceremony to be held at Delaware Air Park in the spring 2017.
The Top Gun Scholarship has been founded by Dr. Daniel Coons, retired founder of the DSU Aviation Program and a 2011 inductee into the Delaware Aviation Hall of Fame. He is also a recipient of the Capt. Lathaniel R. Custis Award, a national recognition presented by the Tuskegee Airman, Inc.