The GERWC scholarship committee presented its report, and The Club awarded two Five Hundred Dollar Scholarships to very deserving recipients at the June 14th, 2006  Board  meeting.  Bill Hussmann, Scholarship Committee chairman, reported that this year the club received 13 applicants for the Male Award and 16 applicants for the Female Award.  He reported that the qualifications of each applicant were outstanding and that each applicant certainly deserved the award.  At that point, member Lou Slaces
made a motion that we simply write out 29 checks for $500  each so that we had one for each applicant.  President Benfield called for some discussion on the question.  Cedric Hustace suggested that if we did so, certain Board members -- most specifically himself--- would be subject to criminal charges for fraud and check deception.  Certain members who wish to remain anonymous but identified as "Ray ,the Colonel and Eff" suggested that they wouldn't mind seeing Cedric spend a day or two in jail, but didn't second Lou's motion-- which died for a lack of a second.
 

Louis Stumpf and Bill Hussmann

Louis Stumpf and Family

      The committee proceeded to award the Male Scholarship to Louis Stumpf of Bosse High School.  Louis is one of five valedictorians at Bosse this year graduating with a 4.0 grade point average.  He was the class President for 3 years and Vice President for 1.  He was Vice President of the National Honor Society.  A Kiwanis award winner in Cross country and Swimming, he was also the Captain of the Track and Cross country teams  and received Academic All City awards in track for 3 years.  He is active in the Junior Mental Health Association, where he is the community service chair.  Louis' essay began with a quote from runner Steve Prefontaine, who said "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." Louis certainly has never given anything but his best at all his endeavors, and it is this kind of person-- one who always gives his best-- that the club is privileged and proud to help in what little way we can to further his education.  Louis will attend USI next year majoring in biology.  Louis' parents very graciously thanked the club for the scholarship and recognized the club for all its help at track and cross county meets.  They suggested that Louis was a pretty good kid, and it is the club's experience that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree".  So Louis' parents are entitled to congratulations themselves for raising such a fine young man.
 

Kelly Clem and Bill Hussmann

Kelly Clem and Family

      The club then awarded its Female Scholarship to Kelly Clem of North Posey High School.  Kelly is THE Valedictorian at North Posey High School graduating with a 4.0 grade average.  She is President of the National Honor Society, President of the Student Council ( where she was Vice President last year), Captain of the Academic Math Team, and Co-Captain of the Cross Country and Softball Teams.  She was named a National Merit Commended Scholar, received the DAR's Good Citizen and Outstanding History
Student awards,and was awarded an Excellence in Mathematics Award from the University of Evansville.  She volunteers at a local nursing home.  Other than that list of accomplishments, she hasn't done too much.   We do have to mention that she runs short distances as well, pitching the North Posey girls softball team to the state finals, breaking the schools record for strikeouts.  Club member Lou Slaces mentioned that he also held his school record for strikeouts, but that was as a batter, not a pitcher.  Kelly's essay struck a chord that we as a club want to recognize and encourage when she said " I never finished at or even towards the beginning (of a cross country race), but the great thing about running is that it does not matter.  I finished every race and gained the very beneficial trait of being a runner....If someone would have told me five years ago that I would go out and run for exercise and fun, I would not have believed them, but if someone asks me today what I will be for exercise and fun five years from now, I know what my answer will be."  Kelly's parents told us that before we committed her to sainthood we needed to know that her schedule didn't leave a lot of time for cleaning her room.  That trait, being common to almost every club member in the room , only doubled our resolve to give her the scholarship.  She may need to hire a cleaning service for the dorm next year.  She will be studying at USI, probably looking at teaching but with her eyes wide open for other possibilities.  Kelly is clearly the type of young woman who is a role model for younger people.  We, as a club, are thrilled that we can help her a little, and that when we talk to younger people about running we can say:" Do you know Kelly Clem ?--  she's a runner"  .That is all we have to say to people to encourage them to want to be a part of our club.  The club congratulates Kelly's parents and wishes her all the best in her coming college career.

      One final note from the committee.  The money for these scholarships really does not come from the members $15.00 per year dues.  Rather , it comes from the many hours of hot or cold mostly sweating work of a limited number of members who morning after morning show up to time local events and earn the revenue we need to give the scholarships.   The many hours of volunteer work by Bob Lauderdale, Ray Pritchett, Jim Effinger, Gordon Benefield, Tom Anderson and others who should be named but won't be needs to be recognized at this time.  Remember the club mantra:  "Race three, work one"  We need all the members to put in some time on these events if we want to continue this program.  If you aren't at least occasionally working a race, contact the timing committee on this website and join up. We need to keep doing this !