MEMPHIS and JACKSON, Tenn. — From the moment he received the microphone from Middle Tennessee State University Sidney A. McPhee on the small stage inside the FedEx Event Center at Shelby Farms in Memphis, it was obvious that MTSU alumnus and hip-hop artist Tyrone “Tyke T” Stroble knew how to work a crowd.

“Let’s go ahead and get started like this is a Tyke-T show. Memphis, Tennessee, I need y’all to make some noise in here right now, please,” Stroble said, eliciting a round of applause and cheers. Noting that he was the first person on his mother’s side of the family to earn a college degree and first in his entire family to earn a master’s, Stroble told the capacity crowd, “I can just tell y’all, going to MTSU was the best decision I ever made in my life.”

An energetic crowd of prospective students and families was in attendance during the university’s True Blue Tour student reception in Memphis on Nov. 4, before the MTSU delegation headed back down I-40 east to the Jackson Country Club for another event the next day. 

Among the 130-plus prospective students in attendance in Memphis, White State High School senior Lauren Perez, accompanied by her mother, Samantha, said she is already committed to becoming a Blue Raider and has been admitted to pursue her academic dream of becoming a professional pilot through MTSU’s highly regarded Aerospace Department.

“The program is really respected and it’s in state. So honestly, all those factors added up before me and worked out,” she said, adding that the chance to connect with MTSU staff on the tour stop was too good to pass up. “It’s awesome, bringing out the people who are in charge, making connections, and bringing it to the community. We toured (campus) last month, but not everybody can get there.”

McPhee awarded $11,500 in scholarships to several lucky students, and although Perez didn’t land one, she’s planning to retake the ACT in December to boost her score to qualify for some of the guaranteed scholarships outlined by John Davis, assistant director of Undergraduate Transfer Admissions, and pair it with the Hope Scholarship already in hand.

Admissions staff, university deans, academic advisors, and others join McPhee on these tour stops to engage prospective students, their parents, and counselors, in hopes that the teenagers and transfer students will become future Blue Raiders. Attendees learn about more than 300 degree programs, student success and organizations, caring staff and faculty, a safe campus environment and scholarship opportunities. 

Earlier that day, 75 high school guidance counselors and community college representatives turned out for a luncheon during which McPhee distributed $145,000 in scholarships for counselors to take back to their schools.

LaToya Chavers, transfer and articulation administrator at Southwest Tennessee Community College, said it was “absolutely amazing” to accept the $5,000 scholarship for her school in recognition of the strong relationship between the institutions, providing seamless transitions for Southwest students to enroll at MTSU as transfer students.

“We are trying to make MTSU a household name at Southwest. So students know that they can leave Memphis, Tennessee, and they can go to a great school and live on campus,” she said. “Not only that, it’s affordable to them, and it also has just great opportunities, a wide range of majors.”

Lashonda Norman, a college and career counselor with Memphis Virtual School, said she appreciated how MTSU appreciates the guidance counselors, including the $2,500 scholarships awarded to each represented school to present to students “that’s going to make a significant difference in somebody’s pocket.”

‘I highly recommend MTSU’

In Jackson on Nov. 5, South Gibson High School senior Fatima Razeq was among several lucky students who received scholarships totaling $10,900 from McPhee after drawing names to conclude the evening student reception.

With a $1,500 scholarship in hand, Razeq said she actually had no idea about the True Blue Tour stop so close to home until she heard about it during a college fair at her school. She was searching for a university that offered medical sonography and learned that MTSU’s Department of Chemistry offers a bachelor’s degree, with a concentration in allied health technology, through its pre-professional programs.

“And then I learned all about how great the program is, how easy it is to get that degree and that bachelor’s,” said Razeq. The MTSU representative then told her about the True Blue Tour. “And so, I just booked it right then and there.”

A high-achiever with “all A’s,” Razeq also participates in multiple extracurricular activities, serving as president of the HOSA-Future Health Professionals student chapter, president of the Beta Club, and vice president of the Spanish honor society.

“I take hard classes like AP Calculus, Anatomy and Physiology, Honors. I’ve always taken Honors,” she said. “…It’s a matter of priorities, managing your time.

“I want to become a sonographer. I want to work at a hospital and talk to people, communicate and socialize and take care of people,” she said.

Earlier that day, McPhee and the MTSU contingent welcomed 80 representatives from West Tennessee high schools and community colleges, with $102,500 in scholarships awarded to all institutions that sent staff to the event. 

“We’re centrally located. We are a university right in the geographic center of the state. That gives us a really good spot that we attract students, we are one of the few universities in the state to have students from all 95 counties,” McPhee said.

Riverside High School in nearby Decatur County was awarded a $5,000 scholarship for sending the most students to MTSU this year, a pleasant surprise for Maeley Myracle, a first-year college access counselor at Riverside through the Ayers Foundation nonprofit.

“We actually went to a campus visit at MTSU yesterday, and we had 14 kids who were very interested in MTSU, and that’s out of 97, so that’s a very good number of kids,” she said. “So this $5,000 will really help those students we choose to give it to … that might be stressed about going to college and getting that good education.”

Seth Harden, vice president for enrollment management at Jackson State Community College, was part of a large delegation of JSCC representatives on hand for the Nov. 5 counselor’s luncheon, further cementing the institutions’ relationship in helping JSCC transfer students continue their academic careers at MTSU.

“Everybody at Jackson State recognizes that MTSU does things with excellence. And every time we come to this event, the event is always amazing itself, but we know that’s a representation of what the college is in general,” Harden said. “And we love sending students to the school and know that they have good outcomes and are able to get jobs after they get their degree. … We always love coming out.”

Alumnus Ryan Porter, chief operating officer of Jackson Energy Authority, told the counselors that MTSU provided benefits that extended well beyond the classroom.

“What I really gained from attending was all the indirect benefits from that, the relationships I made, the exposure to other people that are different from me, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Porter said. “So I highly recommend MTSU.”

This year’s True Blue Tour concluded Thursday, Nov. 13, with events in Williamson County. MTSU’s guaranteed scholarship deadlines are Dec. 1 for undergraduate applicants and March 1, 2026, for transfers.

— Jimmy Hart (Jimmy.Hart@mtsu.edu)