For 20 years, Ruschell Boone built a stellar reputation as an Emmy Award-winning reporter and anchor.

Her career was sadly cut short last year due to pancreatic cancer, but her legacy will live on through a newly created college scholarship in her name.

“It wasn’t easy, you know. She had to claw and scratch for everything that she got, she earned everything that she got,” William Thompson, chairman of the Board of Trustees at CUNY, said. “But it’s also a life built on principle, and a life built on moving forward, never quitting.”

Thompson threw his full support behind the Ruschell Boone Scholarship, which will benefit Caribbean students pursuing degrees at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism or Baruch College — Boone’s alma mater.

“The first $25,000, I will say, my firm has a small foundation, Siebert William Shank and Company, it has a small foundation, they put the first $25,000 up,” Thompson said. “And again, our firm is one of the largest minorities in women-owned firms in the country. So, even more perfect. It just made sense.”

"Heaven now has an anchor, a heavenly host, an anchor of the Ruschell Boone show news all the time and news until we meet again. Lastly, I’m looking forward to working with the mayor and CUNY to name a scholarship in her honor at the CUNY [Graduate] School of Journalism,” State Attorney General Letitia James said during Boone’s funeral at Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn.

Last September, James first planted the seed of a CUNY scholarship.

“But the person who gave us joy, long before this political season, is Ruschell Boone. And that’s why we need to keep her legacy alive, and keep mentioning her name in producing students who will focus on journalism again, in her spirit and in commitment to all that she has done,” James said during an interview with “In Focus” last weekend.

Boone was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and despite the many challenges she faced growing up in the Bronx, she was determined to excel and she inspired others to do the same.

“When the attorney general calls and believes in something passionately, and look, I knew Ruschell - I agree, and it kind of started there,” Thompson said. “I will say we hit starts and stops, starts and stops, but Tisch [James] never let it go. She was always on it, she was persistent, she followed up, and at times that’s what it takes to get something done, but it is looking at Ruschell and who she was and the inspiration she can bring to others.

“And it’s really, critically important, again, that we support individuals focused on journalism. The Craig Newmark [Graduate] School of Journalism and her alma mater at Baruch [College] will produce journalism students, obviously will continue in her footsteps,” James said during “In Focus.”