Many members of the Slayton HS “Class of 64” gathered last weekend for a 60th birthday party but those attending had more on their minds than cake and ice cream.

“We used this birthday get-together to see what we can do as a class to help support the Wayne Onken Scholarship Fund”, said Karen Burch, one of the party organizers and Slayton resident.

According to Mary Beech, MCC guidance counselor, The Wayne Onken Scholarship was established by his family following his death at age 38 in an automobile accident. Given annually, the scholarship provides money for books and tuition; with the funds going to an MCC graduate who pursues an education in agriculture.

This year’s award recipient, Brytney Platt, will attend Ridgewater Community and Technical College in Willmar. Goals Set

“We all graduated with Wayne and there has been a growing interest in seeing how we can organize our efforts to help the scholarship presented each year in his honor.” Burch added.

The “official” birthday party was held last Saturday night at Burch’s Lake Shetek home. Between memories and tall tales, Onken’s classmates shared ideas on ways of supporting the scholarship and put the wheels in motion to start an ongoing fund raising campaign.

The Class has set an eight-year goal of increasing the annual award to $400.00 and building an endowment fund of $60,000, according to Bruce A. Fried, Onken’s classmate and now a San Antonio, TX resident.

“We’re calling it the ‘60-4 Campaign’. Sixty for the endowment thousands, four for the scholarship hundreds and 64 for the Class effort,” added Burch.

Why eight years? “Because in eight years we will celebrate our 50th class reunion and it seemed like a doable target.” Fried said.

“It’s not only about raising money”, Fried said “but that’s about 90 percent of it. The more money we can raise, the more students we can help. Plus, we can increase the scholarship amounts.” “We need all of Wayne’s friends, classmates, family, teachers and people who remember him to step up to the plate and help us make this happen.”

More Than Money

But Onken’s classmates are looking beyond just providing more funds.

“In addition to raising money we also talked about how we can make more students aware of Wayne’s leadership and academic qualities,” Fried added. “Any student would be well served emulating Wayne’s example and we want to share his story with as many as we can. The world would be a better place with more Wayne Onkens in it.”

Burch agreed. “As a member of the FFA, co-captain of the football team, National Honor Society member and class leader, Wayne’s student life serves as an inspiration and example for all who knew him,” she added. “We, as a class, want to do what we can to share that example and provide whatever assistance we can to deserving graduates for years to come.”

“The birthday party was a great start but we have a lot of work ahead of us. But, as in all things, ‘The Class of 64′ is up to the task,” stated Burch.

The Wayne Onken Scholarship Fund is administered by a Board of Trustees that includes the president of the United Prairie Bank, the MCC principal and guidance counselor, the School Board Principal and others. Anyone wanting to donate money or to just learn more about the scholarship and “60-4 Campaign” is urged to contact Karen Burch at (507) 760-1555 / e-mail: valcry@hotmail.com or Bruce A. Fried at (210) 820-0678 / e-mail: bafster@satx.rr.com.

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Thursday, August 31, 2006 at 2:46 am and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: College, Education News, Scholarship, Student, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.