Marcus Hill's Daughter Graduates College on NFTDRF Scholarship

Marcus DeWayne Hill kept a photograph of his daughter taped to the dashboard of every truck he drove for 18 years. The photo changed as Aaliyah grew — from a toddler in pigtails to a teenager in her high school graduation cap — but the location never did. Center of the dash, driver's side. So she was the first thing he saw when he climbed in and the last thing he saw when he parked for the night.

Marcus drove for Werner Enterprises out of Georgia. He was 42 years old and had logged more than 1.1 million miles without a preventable accident when he died on November 2, 2023, in a multi-vehicle collision on I-75 near Macon. He was four months from qualifying for Werner's Million Mile Club recognition ceremony. Aaliyah was 21 and in her junior year at Georgia State University when she got the call.

Who Marcus Was

People who knew Marcus describe a man who treated his work with the kind of seriousness that doesn't announce itself. He never missed a birthday call to Aaliyah regardless of what state he was in, what time zone he was crossing, or how long his previous shift had run. He called at 7:00 PM Eastern every year, a tradition that started when Aaliyah was three and never stopped. She says she still reaches for her phone at 7:00 PM on her birthday without thinking about it.

Marcus wanted Aaliyah to study nursing. He talked about it the same way he talked about his routes — with calm certainty, as if it were already done. "He used to say, 'Somebody needs to be able to help people when they're in trouble,'" Aaliyah recalls. "He said it like he was talking about me, but I think he was also talking about himself. That's what he thought driving was — he was moving things that people needed."

The Scholarship and What It Changed

Aaliyah applied to the NFTDRF scholarship program in February 2024, three months after her father's death. At the time, she was weighing whether to take a leave of absence from school to work full-time and help cover the household gap left by the loss of her father's income. The $5,000 scholarship she received that spring changed the math. She stayed enrolled. She finished her junior year. She made dean's list.

"It wasn't just the money," she says. "It was what the money meant. Somebody organized around drivers enough to set up a fund for their kids. That told me my dad's work mattered to someone besides us. And that helped more than anything."

Graduation Day

On May 10, 2025, Aaliyah Hill walked across the stage at Georgia State University's commencement ceremony and received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Her mother was in the third row. Her aunt drove from Savannah. Two of her cousins drove up from Valdosta. She wore a small pin on her graduation gown — a truck silhouette, the kind you can find at rest stop gift shops. She bought it herself the week before.

"I kept thinking about that photo on the dashboard. He was always watching. I think he still is." — Aaliyah Hill, NFTDRF Scholarship Recipient, Class of 2025

Aaliyah has accepted a position in the ICU at a hospital in Atlanta. She plans to specialize in trauma care. She says her father would have found that perfectly logical.

The Foundation's Scholarship Program

The NFTDRF scholarship program has awarded more than $340,000 in educational grants since its founding. Awards of up to $5,000 are available annually to dependent children and surviving spouses of professional truck drivers who lost their lives while working. The 2025 application cycle is currently open through June 30. Eligibility criteria and application materials are available at nftdf.org/scholarships.

"Aaliyah is why we do this," said the Foundation's scholarship committee chair. "Not the abstract version of why — the specific version. She had a plan. She needed the bridge. We were the bridge."