Scholarship established to honor Gulfport businessman Lynn Parkhill

A longtime Coast businessman will be remembered with a memorial scholarship in his name.

Family and friends of Lynn Parkhill, who owned Taco Sombrero in Gulfport, have established the Lynn Parkhill Memorial Taco Sombrero Scholarship at MGCCC.

The $500 scholarship is open to incoming freshmen at MGCCC majoring in the culinary arts or business management program. The student also must live in Harrison, Jackson, Stone or Hancock County. The scholarship can be used toward tuition, fees, room, board, books and supplies.

“One of Mr Lynn’s greatest joys was serving as a mentor and role model for the hundreds of young people he employed over the years at Taco Sombrero,” the restaurant posted on its social media. “We are thrilled to announce that we have partnered with the MGCCC Foundation to honor his life’s work by establishing a memorial scholarship fund in his name, with the purpose to provide assistance to a freshman college student entering a culinary arts or business management program.”

The scholarship will be managed by the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community Foundation and their scholarship committee will select the annual recipient.

Parkhill, a Texas native, opened Taco Sombrero in 1980 at the age of 22.

It was often said of Lynn that he never met a stranger and that has never been truer of anyone than it was of him. Over the 44 years that Lynn lived and did business on the Coast, he touched thousands of lives. Countless employees, current and former, remember him as their first boss who taught them the value of hard work and honesty, and the person who was there to lend a hand or support them through tough times and celebrate with them in good times.