Shaw University in Raleigh North Carolina was presented with a check in the amount of $89,680.45 by the family of the late North Carolina State Senator Vernon Malone to establish a scholarship in his honor. Prior to his death Malone had served as the vice-chair of the Shaw Board of Trustees.

The funds will be used to establish the Vernon and Susan Malone Endowed Scholarship that will provide financial support for deserving students in the university’s Education Department. Vernon Malone was a longtime educator, serving as a teacher, the school board chairman in Raleigh and superintendent of the Governor Morehead School for the Blind. During his tenure in the state legislature, Malone was co-chairman of the education committee and the appropriations committee for higher education. He also served for more than 20 years as a Wake County Commissioner and trustee for North Carolina State University, the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Wake Education Partnership.

"Senator Malone was a long-time supporter of Shaw and this act of generosity by his family continues that tradition," said Shaw President Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy. "We are proud of our association with the Malone family and it is appropriate that we will now have a scholarship within the Department of Education that bears his and his wife's name."

Malone was an alumnus of Shaw University and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The funds to establish the scholarship represent the contributions of friends of the late State Senator as well as unused funds that remained in his campaign fund following his death in April 2009.