Koster introduces scholarship bill

* Program provides education money to children of parents killed in combat.

Special to the Daily Mail

Jefferson City -- Senator Chris Koster, R-Cass County, today introduced a bill in the Missouri Senate that would establish a scholarship program for children of military service veterans killed in action during the present conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We owe our military service men and women a debt of gratitude we can never fully repay," Koster said. "This is my first bill in the Missouri Senate, and I wanted to do something important with it. This scholarship program is one way we can acknowledge the extraordinary and unending sacrifice made by so many families in Missouri who have lost loved ones in the present conflicts."

Koster's program as lined out in Senate Bill 175 provides a full 50 percent of higher learning tuition costs, as well as up to 100 percent each year for housing expenses and the costs of books for as many as 25 students whose parents have perished as a direct result of their service in the Afghanistan or Iraqi theaters of war.

Koster's bill relies on legislative appropriation and will soon be referred to committee, where a passing vote will send the measure back to the Senate floor for debate and a final by the full body.

Subsequent approval in the House of Representative sends Koster's scholarship program to the governor's desk.

"As one who served his country on active duty himself, I'm confident Governor Blunt recognizes the merits of helping provide an education to the children of those lost to war," Koster said.

Senator Chris Koster represents the people of Johnson, Vernon, Bates and Cass counties in the Missouri Senate.