Some of the brightest young minds were celebrated this month at the "Carson Scholars" awards ceremony at the West Palm Beach Hilton Hotel.
World-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson and his wife Candy Carson passed out the scholarships.
The couple also invited the world's most prolific author to the stage. James Patterson took questions from the students and made a donation to Carson's charity, specifically for an HBCU.
WATCH BELOW: "Carson Scholar" award recipient speaks about honor
"I don't think people understand the historically Black colleges as well as they should," Patterson said. "One of the interesting facts about those schools is that 80% of the Black lawyers in this country come out of HBCUs, 70% of doctors and 50% of Black teachers come out of those schools. I think if people understood that more, I think they'd get more involved, and that's why this was so attractive to me."
"We run into our scholars all over the place," Dr. Ben Carson said. "Just being able to see these kids get inspired and think about what they can do is really gratifying."
Carson Scholars has awarded more than 11,000 scholarships since the charity began in 1994.
Anchor Shannon Cake sat down with both leaders to talk about reading, education and the controversial book ban debate.
