"We have some fantastic sporting talent in the Bay, many of which represent New Zealand. However, representing your country overseas is expensive and in most sports, the athlete has to come up with some or all of the money to travel.
"Fortunately, we have trusts like Jarrod's that want to ensure local sporting talent can reach for the stars. The scholarship is a great way to provide financial assistance that helps take away some of the burden of wearing the silver fern."
The co-chairman of the trust, Tony Maidens, said the trust's philosophy is to keep youth in sport and preventing any barriers to participating when the costs become too high.
"It's not cheap to fly to Europe or the United States to play for your country. We got involved in Stars to enable many athletes to live their dreams and the scholarship is a further step of this for one super-talented athlete.
"However, they will not be awarded the scholarship just because of how talented they are on the court or field but also how they show leadership and demonstrate how much of a good sport they are off the field."
World-ranked sprinter Hulls, shot putter Palmer, a Commonwealth Youth Games silver medallist, and New Zealand Secondary Schools rugby star Flanders will be joined by New Zealand under-17 World Cup soccer player Rose Morton, Aotearoa Maori Secondary Schools netballer Jaydi Taylor-Chaffey, Oceania age-group squash champion Rhiarne Taiapa, world-ranked para athlete Guy Harrison and New Zealand basketball and volleyball representative Rosalia Samia as finalists for the scholarship.
All eight are likely to feature as finalists for the respective female and male sportsperson of the year awards as all code category award winners are automatic finalists for those awards. The winner of the supreme award is selected from the winner of the team, para athlete, female and male categories.
More than 170 nominations across 33 categories in numerous sports were received for the awards. These have been narrowed down to 103 finalists, 67 of whom are among the finalists for the code awards, with the remaining 36 in the major categories.
"We're excited to celebrate the tremendous achievements of student athletes and teams and recognise those who have provided outstanding service to secondary school sport," Armstrong said.
"This year we will recognise eight long-time servants of secondary school sport who have dedicated more than 10 years' service. All of the finalists should be proud of their achievements and we look forward to celebrating Hawke's Bay secondary school sport."
Those who will be recognised for service are the Karamu High School trio of Jon Matthews, Tracy and Dave Taylor, the St John's College trio of Ian Smith, Chris Hansen and Grant McFarland, Hastings Boys High School's Trent Miller and Flaxmere College's Reva Joseph.
■ For a full list of finalists see Sport Hawke's Bay website.
