The Bedard Family Scholarship
Criteria: ($1,000 Award) The Bedard Family Scholarship will be awarded to a student entering his or her sophomore year of study in the Business Administration department. Candidates are those full-time students who have demonstrated a high degree of ambition, motivation and a “can-do” attitude toward success. Candidates must work full- or part-time while attending WSU. An essay should accompany the application, indicating the students desire to explore the possibilities of business ownership and documenting what the student has done to pursue this goal. This scholarship is renewable based on performance. International students with a sincere interest in business should consider applying for this scholarship.
David Bedard was born in Worcester and graduated from Worcester State University in 1974. David and his four brothers and sisters were raised in the Great Brook Valley Housing Project by his mother, Ann Raymond, a single parent. They did not have much, materially, but their mother made sure that they were taught strong values.
The entrepreneurial spirit struck David early as he raised spending money and helped boost the family income with two paper routes, delivering the Worcester Daily and Sunday Telegram seven days a week. He received the T&G’s highest annual award (ACE Carrier) several times as a youth.
Upon graduation from high school, David enrolled at Worcester State as an Elementary Education major. “I originally wanted to attend a different college for a business degree but we simply couldn’t afford it.” In his junior year, WSU announced that it would begin offering a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. “I vividly recall that we didn’t have many Business faculty, so we took classes at WPI and Clark, in addition to WSU.” He completed the requirements for the Business degree in three semesters, and was one of the first Worcester State graduates in that program in 1974.
David worked in television advertising sales for thirteen years at WSMW-TV 27 in Worcester and WJAR-TV 10 in Providence, RI. However, the entrepreneurial drive that had developed as a youth remained strong. He would work his full-time job in TV sales, and then put in another 20 to 30 hours a week developing his own businesses.
Today, as president of Bedard Enterprises, he heads up several international marketing companies operating in the U.S. and eight other countries (the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Korea, Spain, Italy, Greece and Mexico). In addition, he owns and operates a large real estate investment and development company in the U.S. In establishing the Bedard Family Scholarship along with his wife, Linda, and his children, Noelle and Josh, David notes that it is most important to keep focused on your lifelong goals and dreams and pursue them vigorously. That is what makes America great.
According to David, his education at WSU was “the cornerstone of my foundation for success. It gave me the knowledge and confidence to go out and pursue my goals and dreams. Now it is with great pleasure that my family can establish this scholarship as a way of giving back.”