BUTTE –Montana Governor Steve Bullock personally congratulated the 2016 Mariah’s Challenge Scholarship recipients in Butte on Tuesday evening.
The governor was the Keynote Speaker at the event at Montana Tech that honors 28 high school seniors from the Butte area who successfully completed the challenge to not drink or get in a vehicle with someone who had been drinking throughout their school years.
Leo McCarthy started the challenge after his daughter Mariah was killed by a drunk driver in October of 2007.
The challenge has given away more than $300,000 in scholarships to worthy students.
The governor said the tragedy forced Montana to address the problem of drinking and driving.
“In the wake of what is an unimaginable tragedy, folks in this community came together,” said Gov. Bullock. “They said ‘This has to stop. That as Montanans we can no longer accept that we lose some of our best and our brightest through mistakes brought on by alcohol.’”
Since Mariah’s Challenge started, other cities in Montana and across the country have gotten involved in this program.
