The SHS Alumni Association gives out over $100,000 annually to select seniors who are pursuing higher education.
Many recipients, parents, teachers and others do not understand the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes for everything to happen the correct way.
While many schools may offer awards, only a handful have scholarship programs exceeding six figures.
“I have not seen anybody that gives out over $100,000 in scholarships at the high school level,” SHS Alumni Association President Brent Bockelman said. “That’s larger than a lot of colleges will give out.
A large number of high schools offer scholarship opportunities, but only a few will reach six-figure amounts. SHS is believed to be one of the only high schools that has a scholarship program this advanced.
What makes the SHS program stand out is not just the amount of money that is handed out, but how personalized the awards are. With around 70 scholarships given annually, the scholarships provide significant support to a large span of students.
“The association ourselves gives out a certain amount,” Bockelman said. “But the overwhelming majority comes from donors.”
Running a program of this scale involves a lot of people who do significant amounts of work behind the scenes. There are teams of people that work on different aspects like managing donor relations, event planning, bookkeeping and more.
“There are a lot of moving parts,” Bockelman said. “My goal is to not get in their way, but make sure everyone is working in connection so everything can move as it should.”
In addition to the current board, the program is constantly being shaped by alumni and past leaders. Their legacy continues to impact students every year through the program.
In December of each year, the application opens to seniors who wish to apply for these scholarships. This school year, nearly 170 students applied for scholarships.
After the application deadline has passed, a selection committee works to match applicants with the awards based on donor criteria. The committee gets together and works to pair students with specific scholarships based on their application.
Some scholarships only require a minimum GPA or participation in extracurricular activities. Others are more personalized based on what the donor wants.
“Every donor has a criteria for their scholarship,” Bockelman said. “We try to honor those wishes as closely as possible.”
In some years, there are no applicants that match the criteria for a certain scholarship. If there are no matches for that scholarship, then the money is rolled over to the next school year and hopefully given that year.
“There’s a scholarship for a golfer, one for someone going into education, and even one just fo
r a wrestler,” bookstore manager Vivian Leach said. “Each donor makes their own guidelines based on what matters to them.”
Scholarship amounts range from $500 to $5,000, with most of them averaging around $1,000. The alumni association usually gives awards of $1,000, while donors vary based on how much each scholarship is able to raise.
Another aspect that sets SHS’s scholarship program apart from others is that typically the awards are sent directly to the recipient’s college to be removed from tuition.
But most of the scholarships given at SHS are given as personal checks that are directly handed to the students.
“They actually walk out of there (the banquet) on that night with a check with their name on it,” Bockelman said. “They can use that money for books, a laptop, or whatever they need.”
The work never really stops with the alumni association.
After the banquet in May, the team takes a short break before preparing for the next cycle. Fiscal reporting is completed by July, and donation collection for the next school year begins almost immediately after.
