CO. DOWN WINNER FOR OLDCORN AWARD

Posted 1 July 2002

A WOMAN FROM County Down has won the Oldcorn Award for the best student on the University Access Course (UAC) at Harper Adams University College, Shropshire.

Louise Robinson, 18, of Ballygowan, Newtownards, received the award, an engraved, silver salver, on June 18, 2002, after students and staff on the course voted her the outstanding student of the year.

Louise is a former student of Friends School, Co. Antrim, and after graduating from the UAC later this year, she intends to go on and take a BSc (Hons) Agriculture with Animal Science degree course, again at Harper Adams.

This is the second consecutive year in which a student from the island of Ireland has won the Oldcorn Award. In 2001 the award went to Maeve Moran, of Co. Mayo, in the Republic of Ireland, giving the island as a whole an impressive record in the competition.

The UAC is a one-year long course that acts as a stepping stone into Higher Education for students who do not attain the required qualifications of an HND or Degree. In its 31 years, the course has previously been known as the Foundation course and as the Pre-Entry Course.

The Oldcorn Award is a memorial award named after and dedicated to Philip Oldcorn who died while a Foundation Course student at Harper Adams. Philip's parents, John and Sylvia Oldcorn founded the award in 1996 and return to the university college each year for the presentation ceremony.

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