Twin Cape High graduates receive rootEd scholarships

Twin sisters and 2023 graduates of Cape Girardeau Central High School were recently named as recipients of the rootEd Undergraduate Scholarship through rootEd Alliance.

Liliana Correa Salinas and Lupita Correa Salinas will each receive up to $60,000 to pursue their undergraduate degrees at the University of Missouri.

According to a news release from Cape Girardeau Public Schools, the bilingual twins are first-generation college students. Liliana is majoring in mechanical engineering and Lupita is majoring in computer science.

The sisters said they both worried about how they were going to pay for college. They said their mother raised them and their two younger brothers on her own.

Liliana said their mother always encouraged them to go to college because she once wanted to go herself.

"But she couldn't because both of her parents died when she was young, and she always told us that we should continue our education," Liliana said.

She said her mother worked hard at her job at a restaurant and was able to save some money for her daughters' tuition, but not enough.

Lupita said the rootEd Alliance scholarship will cover most of their college expenses, so they won't have to take out loans and worry about a lot of debt after school.

Liliana said she also wants to study aerospace and her dream job would be to design spacecraft for NASA. Lupita said she would love to travel, and as a computer programmer, she could work remotely wherever she lives.

As twins, the sisters said they have always been close and had similar interests. Now as roommates going to the same university, they said they have often talked of one day creating their own business.

"We have some friends who are pre-med and interested in bioscience, and we've all talked about building our own company to help each other to help people," Lupita said.

Nancy Strothmann, College and Career adviser at Cape Central High, said the Salinas sisters are "deserving of this honor."

"We, at CHS, are proud of these bright, hardworking young women," Strothmann said. "We are also thankful to rootEd for giving them this opportunity."

The sisters said they were thankful for Strothmann's help and guidance.

"We didn't know anything about how to get into college and she helped us find schools we could get into and helped us apply for the rootEd scholarship," Lupita said.

The sisters said they discovered their interests at a career fair they went to at Terry W. Kitchen Central Junior High School and were able to explore those interests through the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center.

Liliana said she took computer science courses through the CTC, where she learned how to write code for a robot. Lupita said she took courses in mechanical engineering, and her final project was using the school's 3D printer to make an iPhone case for her brother.

According to its website, www.rootedalliance.org, rootEd Alliance is a national philanthropic organization dedicated to ensuring students in rural communities graduate on a path to achieve career success and economic stability.

The website states rootEd scholarships are "last dollar", which means they are intended to fill a student's unmet financial needs based on their cost of attendance after other financial aid is considered. By helping students to graduate nearly debt-free, the program aims to increase college enrollment and completion for students in rural Missouri, the website stated.