Como man named  Fulbright U.S. Student

By Rita Howell
Mathew Holloway of Como received word last month that he has been selected to participate in the prestigious Fulbright educational exchange program. As a Fulbright U.S. Student, he will represent the U.S. State Department as an English teacher in Panama next year.
Holloway, son of Gaylor Holloway and grandson of Josephine Cleveland, is a 2012 graduate of North Panola High School and a 2016 graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
The Fulbright program, funded by the federal government, sends students to 140 countries for the “promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science,” according to the program’s Web site.
Acceptance in the highly competitive program is just the latest of Holloway’s achievements.
He served as the president of the Black Student Union at Loyola, and has worked with the Jesuit Research Institute, conducting research on poverty and food insecurity in the Gulf South. He spent a semester studying in Ecuador.
In Jamaica he volunteered at the Home for the Destitute and Dying, a home for the elderly run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
Already Holloway has visited nine countries, including Cuba, where he is this week.
In New Orleans he works for a nonprofit, Cafe Reconcile, a life skills and job training program for young people in at-risk communities. Participating students actually work in the program’s restaurant.
In an interview last week with The Panolian, he talked about his love for Como and the family and friends who have encouraged him.
“The small town boy always comes home,” he laughed.
“I know who I am. I don’t forget who I am.”
When he was in the eleventh grade, a mission trip to Panama with the Como Church of Christ changed his life, he said.
“I was introduced to the Latin American culture and the Spanish language. It made me realize that I am a global citizen.”
And it was the catalyst for his desire to take advantage of opportunities to travel and experience and understand different cultures.
So when he applied for the Fulbright program, he asked to go back to Panama, where he is headed in January.
See page A4 for a commentary he wrote for The Panolian.