Wake Tech Community College is offering up to $500 per student to help displaced tobacco workers cover the cost of retraining in the auto detailing, HVAC and hospitality fields.

Wake Tech has already awarded the scholarships to nine students to defray the costs of 10-week retraining courses. The community college plans to distribute the rest of the money through November.

At the current rate, more than 50 students could qualify for the scholarships, which have averaged out to $175 per student so far. The courses cost $175 each, but some students may qualify for more, depending on their financial need.

The scholarships come from a $10,000 grant Wake Tech received from the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. Information on applying is available from Wake Tech's Continuing Education program.

Zach Seabolt of Raleigh shot a 4-under-par 66 from the championship tees to win the 22nd Annual Jack Ratz Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament held at the Wildwood Green Golf Club in Raleigh on Monday.

Katie Seymour of Wake Forest wo  n the girls 16-18 title, shooting a 79 for a five-stroke victory over Alli Mossinghoff.

The 22nd Annual Jack Ratz Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament is a great deal for area junior golfers.

Early entrants for the Aug. 1 main event at Wildwood Green Golf Club in North Raleigh also can golf for free in a July 25 pre-tournament tournament that starts at 11 a.m. A box lunch will be served after the round.

Here are a few tips on what NOT to do.

 Hint - More is better when it comes to applications. And if there's a deadline, meet it.

Ryan Nagy of Raleigh shot a 6-under-par 64 to win the 20th annual Jack Ratz Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament played Aug. 3 at the Wildwood Green Golf Club in North Raleigh.

Seventy-five junior golfers turned out for the annual privately
sponsored tournament, which is conducted by the Ratz family to promote
teenage-driver safety. Proceeds from the event are used to fund the
Cardinal Gibbons High School Scholarship Fund in the memory of Jack
Ratz Jr., who was a Wildwood Green member and a 15-year-old Cardinal
Gibbons freshman when he died in a car accident in 1988.

In the girls 16-18 Division, Katie Yelle of Raleigh and Jeda Borek of
Raleigh each shot a 77, and Yelle won the playoff. (A list of top
finishers in each division is below.)

Depending how you crunch the numbers, UNC Chapel HIll's Morehead-Cain Scholars Program is either in growth mode or has stumbled a bit in its ability to recruit.

With the significant help of a recent $100 million gift,
the scholarship foundation hopes to increase its annual pool to 75 students. The pool has risen steadily over the last several years, from 42 students in 2005 to 50 in 2006 to 58 in 2007 to 62 last year.

But if you look at the numbers in another way, you'll see that the program's yield - the percentage of students offered slots who accepted - dropped a bit this year, to 73 percent from 82 percent the prior year.