Ten student golfers will participate in the 21^th Edward P. Zemprelli Collegiate Shootout as a prelude to the annual Bob Burgess-Thomas McCormac charity golf outing to be held June 7 at the Hershey Golf Club.

The collegiate golfers – representing nine Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education universities and Pennsylvania State University – will tee off at 7:30 a.m. on the Hershey East Course. They will play one 18-hole round under National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.

They will be competing for at least $6,000 in scholarships for their schools. The shootout will conclude around noon, after which the charity portion of the event will begin. The student athletes will be going after prizes worth $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 that will go to the general scholarship funds of the schools of the top three finishers.

Defending champion Matt Walsh of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania will return to defend his title. Walsh won the event last year in a sudden-death playoff with Eric Anderson of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Both shot rounds of 72 to force the playoff, which Walsh won on the first extra hole.

Other returning golfers who will participate in this year’s event are: Corey Gast of Lancaster, a sophomore at Millersville University of Pennsylvania; Anthony Lent, a junior at California University of Pennsylvania; Trey M. Mallicone of Uniontown, a sophomore at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania; and Eric Shaffer of Conneautville, a junior at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Competing for the first time in the event this year will be Brittany Fisher of Easton, a freshman at Pennsylvania State University; Dominic Frassinelli of Allentown, a sophomore at West Chester University of Pennsylvania; Angela Petak of Brockway, a sophomore at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Michael Schmidt of Palmyra, a junior at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; and Tom Will of Erie, a junior at Clarion University of Pennsylvania.

The Burgess-McCormac charity golf outing has been held each year since 1985. Since its inception, the event has raised more than $2 million for various charitable organizations. This year’s event will benefit Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) research and the Penn State Medical Center Children’s Hospital project.

The annual outing began as a memorial to Bob Burgess, a government relations specialist for Beneficial Financial Management. He and a daughter, Pamela, died in an automobile accident in 1983. The event was renamed in 2002 to also memorialize Thomas McCormac, a government relations specialist with Pugliese Associates and former chief of staff for now state House Speaker John Perzel. McCormac died in an automobile accident in 2001.

In addition to the three scholarships for which the student golfers compete, The Burgess-McCormac Memorial Foundation, which operates the event, also contributes a separate $3,000 scholarship each year to Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where Pamela Burgess had been a student.

With more than 107,000 students, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher education in the Commonwealth. The 14 PASSHE universities offer more than 250 degree and certificate programs in more than 120 areas of study. More than 405,000 PASSHE alumni live and work in Pennsylvania.

The state-owned universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. PASSHE also operates branch campuses in Clearfield, Freeport, Oil City and Punxsutawney and several regional centers, including the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg.