Austin Rea, a senior from Washburn Rural High School in Topeka, Kansas, has won the 2020 Wichita State University Clay Barton Scholarship.

He will receive $12,000 a year for four years to attend WSU. The $48,000 Barton Scholarship is one of the largest business scholarships in the state.

Rea has participated in a variety of activities including debate, forensics, National Honor Society, Youth Group and weight training. As a member of National Honor Society, he was elected as the first officer in addition to being a youth leader at his church, allowing him to demonstrate his leadership abilities.

While attending Wichita State, Rea plans on majoring in economics. He will begin classes in fall 2020.

In 1991, the late Rent-A-Center co-founder W. Frank Barton, who provided the naming endowment for WSU's Barton School of Business, established a scholarship in his son Clay’s name.

Clay Barton died from cancer in 1988 at the age of 20, cutting his promising life short. While the Clay Barton Scholarship does not substitute for Clay’s presence, it is a powerful legacy.

This legacy speaks to the richness of the Barton tradition here at Wichita State. Barton Scholars are expected to be the “best of the best,” excelling in academics, leadership and service, fitting the pieces of their lives intricately into a structure that has lasting value.

The candidates face a rigorous set of challenges in competing for the Clay Barton Scholarship.

Wichita State is distinctive for opening pathways to applied learning, applied research and career opportunities, alongside unsurpassed classroom, laboratory and online education. The university's beautiful 330-acre main campus is a supportive, rapidly expanding learn-work-live-play environment, where students gain knowledge and credentials to prepare for fulfilling lives and careers. Students enjoy a wide selection of day, evening and summer courses in more than 200 areas of study at the main campus and other locations throughout the metro area and online. WSU's approximately 16,000 students come from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 other countries. Wichita State's Innovation Campus is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university's vast resources and technology. For more information, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wichitastate and Facebook at www.facebook.com/wichita.state.