Jackson H. Amburn has strong family ties to Troy University. His mother, Sherri, and stepfather, Brent, are both TROY graduates, and his grandmother, Sue Beasley, worked for the University for more than 30 years.

Now, Amburn is getting ready to begin his own journey with TROY. On April 7, the Pike Road High School senior received a scholarship from The Waters Alumni Chapter of TROY, making him the third recipient of the chapter’s scholarship.  Amburn plans to pursue a degree in broadcast journalism beginning this fall.

“It means a lot,” Amburn said of receiving the scholarship. “My family has been involved with TROY for a long time. My grandmother worked there for about 35 years. My mother went there and got her degree in Sport Management, and my stepdad recently got his MBA. There is a lot of history with TROY. I’ve always been involved with TROY, football games, baseball games and just going up there in the summer when my grandmother was still working there. Getting selected for this scholarship is nice. I’ve been able to talk to all of these wonderful people today, people that were there when it was still Troy State and just get that reaffirmation that TROY is the right choice.”

Amburn already has a leg up thanks to his participation in TROY’s Early College dual enrollment program. He will enter this fall as a sophomore.

“Since the summer after my sophomore year, I applied to be in dual enrollment. TROY took me in,” he said. “Just being able to work the last two years and knock out classes, my histories, my sciences and my English classes, it has been really nice. I get to go in as a sophomore now. I like dual enrollment. I would highly recommend it. It works around my schedule. Even when I had larger classes, the teachers were very helpful. It is an amazing program. It is very personal at every level.”

Amburn has been a member of the National Honor Society since 2022 and a member of the National Society of High School Scholars since 2023. In 2025, he was a representative to Alabama Boys State where he was elected to the House of Representatives for the City of Copeland and elected to the Governor’s Cabinet as sectary of the Department of Commerce.

Amburn also currently serves as president of the Alabama National Guard Youth Council. He has been a member of Student 2 Student since 2022, serving as Vice President from 2024-2025 and as a liaison for Pentagon officials during a formal dinner at the Military Child Education Coalition Global Training Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

TROY Alumni Association President Jack Weaver thanked the chapter for their work to award scholarships to deserving students.

“Scholarships are important to the Alumni Board. That is the number one thing that we try to do – raise scholarship money for individuals to have the opportunity to go to college,” Weaver said. “It is helpful for us who have gone before to give back. In my family, there are 11 of us who graduated from TROY. TROY is important to us, and it has been wonderful to be a representative of Troy University to go out and talk to people about the great things that are happening there. We appreciate your hard work because we know that it is the people on the ground that make these scholarships possible.”

Officers of The Waters chapter are President Jeff Dickey, Vice President and Scholarship Chair Angie Bradsher and Treasurer Brantley Leverette.