VCU news

By Cynthia McMullen

Graduation from VCU School of Pharmacy was a day to which Neil Van Pelt eagerly looked forward. An excellent student and proud member of the class of 2012, he loved his family, football, running and dirt-biking. Despite his near legendary brownie-making skills, he had lost more than 100 pounds in his second year at pharmacy school and was planning a future with his girlfriend and classmate, Hillary Hudgins.

That summer, however, tragedy struck. On June 16, 2010, Van Pelt lost his life in a car crash; he’d been driving to a Midlothian Rite Aid where he worked as a pharmacy intern. He was 24 years old.
While Van Pelt did not live to attend the School of Pharmacy’s 2012 Hooding and Diploma Ceremony, certainly he will be there today in spirit as family members accept a posthumous doctor of pharmacy degree in his name. His parents, the Rev. and Mrs. Barry Van Pelt; siblings Jeremy, Catherine and Christie; sister-in-law Jinli; brother-in-law Khalad and nephew Daniel all will be on hand to commemorate and celebrate Van Pelt’s accomplishments.

Van Pelt was described – before and after he died – as a stellar student, the perfect gentleman, an exemplary employee and faithful friend. As news of his death spread, family, friends and classmates expressed their grief and offered an outpouring of sympathy on his Facebook page and other websites.

A 2004 graduate of Culpeper High School and 2008 graduate of Virginia Tech, Van Pelt often beat his own pharmacy professors to class in the morning. “He was a very smart guy who would’ve made a great pharmacist,” said associate professor Laura Morgan. He was also the guy who, according to his girlfriend, would give anyone a ride home or help explain a lecture.

Friends had begun calling the young couple “Nillary.” They had coordinated their summer work schedules and already had planned their fourth-year rotations together. He had just sold his RC51 racing bike, his mother said, because “he was being more careful” for Hudgins’ sake.

Because Van Pelt’s classmates felt so strongly about him, they immediately began working on ways to keep his name alive.  The best way to honor him, they decided, was to create a legacy through scholarships that would help future student achieve their career goals.

Rite Aid Pharmacy jumpstarted the drive for the Neil Van Pelt Memorial Scholarship, and the class of 2012 raised the remainder of the initial endowment fund via donations and activities such as an on-campus brunch and a “Minute to Win It” competition.  The class created specific guidelines for academic performance, character and personal dedication to the profession, wanting to target scholarship recipients who would live up to the standards set by Van Pelt.

A school-sponsored reception last year to recognize the creation of the scholarship featured rich, dark brownies, the kind for which Van Pelt was famous.

The first recipient of the scholarship, awarded this spring, was fourth-year pharmacy student Ashley Savage. “I was very honored they chose me,” she said. “I hope I live up to what the scholarship was founded for. I know Neil will be looking down on us [during the ceremony], and we certainly wish he was here.” Savage has served as class president since 2010.

The class of 2012 will make a donation to the Neil Van Pelt Memorial Scholarship as its parting gift to the school. “It’s such a sad thing to have Neil taken away so early,” said School of Pharmacy Dean Victor Yanchick. “But he will live on in perpetuity.”

The VCU School of Pharmacy 2012 Hooding and Diploma Ceremony will recognize 125 Pharm.D. students and 22 graduate students today at St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Richmond.