Celebrating 40 Years of the Walton International Scholarship Program
By Cherissa Roebuck
January 15, 2025
In 1985, Sam and Helen Walton founded the Walton International Scholarship Program (WISP) to provide free college education for the brightest students from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama. The program’s goal was to strengthen the democratic and free-market futures of these nations by giving students the opportunity to study in America and then return to their home countries and promote free-market enterprises.
The Waltons selected John Brown University as one of three liberal arts universities to educate the Walton scholars (along with Harding University and University of the Ozarks). Since the program’s inception, more than 1,500 Walton International Scholars have earned their undergraduate degrees in America and returned home as leaders in business and culture in Central America and Mexico.
JBU recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Walton International Scholarship Program with a homecoming weekend filled with special events for JBU WISP alumni. Many WISP alumni traveled to Siloam Springs to celebrate.
The WISP celebration began on Thursday, Oct. 3 with a “Meet Your Former Faculty” event, followed by a 40th Anniversary WISP banquet. About 120 WISP alumni and 80 of their guests, along with 60 current students, former program directors and JBU presidents attended the banquet. The weekend continued with a reunion gathering on Alumni Field and a dessert event hosted at the home of John ’71 and Judy McCullough ’70. During John’s four decades as a professor of accounting at JBU, the McCulloughs hosted every single Walton scholar in their home.
The events allowed many WISP alumni to share their stories about their years at JBU and how the Walton International Scholarship Program shaped their lives and influenced their home countries.
One of the speakers at the WISP banquet was Luis Gomez ’91. After earning his bachelor’s degree at JBU, Gomez was honored to be selected to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras for one year. He then completed a master’s degree and a doctorate at Vanderbilt University before returning home to Honduras.
At home in Honduras, Gomez founded the technology company Lufergo. The United Nations selected Lufergo to oversee technology for the government elections in Honduras for the past 16 years — the last four election cycles. Gomez also founded the Telica Farms project, whose endeavors include developing the bean seed that is used to seed close to 25% of all bean production in Honduras.
Gomez shared how his JBU education as a Walton scholar shaped his life and his entrepreneurial undertakings in Honduras.
“I was able to get my education here at JBU, which is by far one of the best things I ever got. We not only were able to get the head knowledge but also the heart knowledge,” Gomez said. “A year into my master’s degree at Vanderbilt, I began to notice that the things I had learned in the Walton program made a difference in the way I treated people.”
Gomez said doing business in their home countries is not always easy.
“It is not always clear how to do proper business as we Christians want to do,” he said. “There were conflicts where decisions needed to be made, and always the decision was that if something was unclear, we would not do it. This is one of the things that has allowed my company to remain in business for 28 years with a name as a good, honest business. It is not just a matter of the Christian life but of being honest all the time.”
“It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived” was a favorite saying of Helen Walton. The continued support of the WISP program by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation has allowed thousands of alumni to receive a Christian education and return to their home countries to scatter the lessons they have learned.
