Kassandra Maldonado, a member of the Class of 2020, has been named the winner of the Holly Dunn Memorial Scholarship. Maldonado will be attending Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.

Holly Dunn, a Jefferson High School Class of 1975 graduate, was an American country music singer and songwriter.  Dunn saw her career rise with three Grammy nominations for singing and song-writing.  She released 10 albums and charted 19 singles, plus two duets on the Hot Country Songs charts.

Two of her single releases, "Are You Ever Gonna Love Me" and "You Really Had Me Going", went to No. 1 on that chart. She is perhaps most widely known for her hit she wrote for her father, "Daddy's Hands." She was named the Academy of Country Music’s Top New Female Vocalist in 1986, and then the winner of Country Music Association’s Horizon Award in 1987.   

Holly Dunn retired from music in 2003.  In 2007, Holly Dunn was one of 10 Jefferson graduates selected as “Distinguished Alumni” for the historical campus.  Holly Dunn passed away in 2016 of cancer. Soon after her passing, friends of Holly Dunn organized the Holly Dunn Memorial Scholarship for singers from the Jefferson High School choir, and have been awarding it to choir members ever since.