Stevie Ray Vaughan Scholarship Fund

For 26 years, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Scholarship Fund has awarded college scholarships to musically talented eighth graders enrolled in the Exploratory Arts Academy at W.E. Greiner Middle School. Vaughan, widely recognized as one of the best guitar player in the world, was killed in a helicopter crash in August 1990.

"Tick Tock" is the name of song written by Vaughan that was included on an album - "Family Style" - that he did with his older brother. The album was released after his death. A lyric in the song states: "...People of the world all had it together. Had it together for the boys and the girls. And the children of the world look forward to a future." Those words and Vaughan's tireless passion for music were the inspiration for the Scholarship Fund to serve as a living memorial to SRV.

To be eligible to apply for the annual scholarships, a student must in the eighth grade, enrolled in the Exploratory Arts Academy at W.E. Greiner, and be in orchestra, band, choir, or mariachi. Students must complete an application and also participate in auditions in front of a panel of judges comprised of professionals from various aspect of the music industry.

Each year's recipients are selected from those auditions and announced at the annual Greiner Academy Awards. The dollar value of the SRV scholarships has increased throughout the years, and each is now $4,000, or $1,000 over four years. To mark our 25th anniversary, we added scholarships for previous recipients who go on to study music in graduate school. The graduate-level scholarships are $2,000 - $1,000 a year for two years - each.

The SRV Scholarship Fund is managed by and the scholarship monies are distributed by the Communities Foundation of Texas.

As of 2019, the Stevie Ray Vaughan Scholarship Fund has awarded $853,000 in scholarships to 242 very talented eighth graders. We have had students got on to attend undergraduate and graduate music programs in universities across Texas and the Untied States, including Berklee, Oberlin, Juilliard, the University of North Texas and the Cleveland Conservatory, among others.
Also, one of our recipients, Lupe Vargas-Garcia, went on to college and came back to be the very popular and successful orchestra and mariachi teacher at Greiner.

You can learn more about her story, and about the Stevie Ray Vaughan Scholarship Fund and its impact in this video: https://vimeo.com/16825037

Our Needs

The Stevie Ray Vaughan Scholarship Fund needs additional funds to be able to continue to fund college scholarships for musically talented students in the Exploratory Arts Academy at W.E. Greiner Middle School. The SRV Scholarship Fund is managed by and the scholarships are administered and distributed by the Communities Foundation of Texas.