Billy Truong moved to Canada six years ago from his home country of Vietnam and has called Moncton home ever since.

“I love it. Everything about this city amazes me. The people and the community we have here is incredible,” said Truong.

Truong is one of 36 Canadian high school students awarded more than $100,000 over four years of undergraduate study through the Loran Scholars Foundation.

The Bernice MacNaughton High School student first heard of the Loran Scholar from a friend, saying the scholarship highlights a student’s leadership, integrity, and wanting to make a positive impact in the community.

“I started researching and read some incredible stories about some incredible individuals who won it previously and I applied,” Truong said.

Loran has provided more than $62 million in undergraduate awards to over 3,000 high school and CEGEP students, including 757 Loran Scholars.

Truong, who received a phone call saying he had won the scholarship, said he was surprised and did not know how to feel.

“My mom was right there with me and she started shedding tears of joy,” he said.

While Loran does focus on good grades, Truong said the origination looks beyond that and wants to know what made you decide to choose the career you want to pursue.

“What do you do at school and why do you do it, who do you hope to impact, what’s the purpose of your involvement,” said Truong.

“For me to say who inspired me, there are two teachers who really helped me grow and develop as a leader, an individual, and a student.

“First is the teacher advisor for the student council, Mr. Steve Cormier, and the second is Mr. John Bryden who coaches track and field and business.”

Truong is the student council president, the co-founder and president of the Economists Club, the founder of a math tutoring club for struggling students, and competes in a variety of school sports, such as soccer, volleyball, and track and field.

“There is a lot more to this scholarship, we get to do three summer internships, one is in policy-making, volunteering for a non-profit, and the last one is corporate,” said Truong.

“I really hope to spend all of those three summers in Moncton and want to see if there’s anything I can do in the future to help the city grow.”

After graduating high school, Truong has his sights on attending post-secondary in Ontario on a business scholarship at Queen’s University in Kingston or Western University in London.

Truong said the first thing any student should think about is what they plan on doing in their career.

“For myself, I know that I like business, so everything I did from when I realized going forward was going to involve business somehow, and when I do stuff for my school, and my community I try to get the business aspect involved in some way, and try to add more passion.”