Local scholarship foundation kicks off major six-month fundraising drive

A good idea never goes out of style.

Thirty-four years after its inception, the concept of an inclusive scholarship program supporting La Conner High School graduates still remains a perfect fit for a community that values education.

The La Conner Community Scholarship Foundation, which evolved from a 1989 Dollars for Scholars campaign launched by then-school administrators Ken Winkes and Norm Hoffman, the local Parent-Teacher-Student Association and civic leaders, including Gail Thulen, Maureen Harlan, John Hastings, Maude Misner and Melphine Schmittou, continues its mission to provide scholarship aid.

And it does so throughout the various ebbs and flows of the business cycle.

But present economic conditions have led the foundation to return to its roots – a six-month fundraising drive akin to when in the late 1980s Dollars for Scholars volunteers took their cause door-to-door seeking monetary support for graduating seniors.

The foundation’s goal is to raise $100,000 by Nov. 30.

A downturn in bond yields has had a negative impact on the foundation’s investment income, necessitating the fund drive to bolster its portfolio.

Thus, Winkes was approached recently by foundation and school board member John Agen to recount how Dollar for Scholars secured its early momentum.

Now retired and living in Conway, Winkes met with Agen and the Weekly News on a Sunday morning at Stompin’ Grounds Coffee.

Winkes recounted how he and Misner had attended a Dollars for Scholars reception at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma where a keynote speaker talked about how students could be encouraged to pursue higher education through creation of community scholarship foundations.

Winkes shared what he and Misner heard during a subsequent PTSA meeting.

“I told them,” he recalled, “that it had to be a community effort. It wasn’t something that the school could do.”

Winkes, also a columnist for the old Channel Town Press newspaper, used his lively writing style to promote the community scholarship concept.

In an April 1989 column, Winkes wrote that he couldn’t think of a community project potentially more rewarding than Dollars for Scholars.

He acknowledged, however, that some heavy lifting would be involved.

“In a nation whose founding and still vital myth, is that all possibilities are open to everyone,” he wrote, “it is easy to forget how circumstantial most of our lives really are. Did we grow up with parents who communicated love and respect for us and to one another. With parents who valued learning, self-discipline and high standards? With parents of any sort at all?

“The who we are,” Winkes insisted, “depends so much on where we are and where we have been.”

Winkes, who grew up in Arlington and graduated from Stanford University, contended that the fragile nature of human destiny underscores the community scholarship format.

“Such a program,” he stressed, “would fulfill the promise that a high school education implies. Through it, our community could influence our children’s dreams, expand their sense of possibilities and provide a source of control over our own lives that many do not, in fact, possess.”

The community scholarship program dream Winkes championed received a huge boost in 2009 when the late Lea McMillan Diacos, a La Conner and Western Washington State College alum, bequeathed $1.6 million to the foundation.

Today the organization receives contributions from community members while working alongside groups such as the La Conner Alumni Association, La Conner Soroptimists, La Conner Kiwanis and the La Conner Rotary Club, among others, that regularly award scholarships to La Conner graduates.

Meanwhile, the prose Winkes composed more than three decades ago rings as true today. Citing its many possibilities, Winkes conceded that a community scholarship program would not be a panacea for all society’s problems.

“I see it instead,” he opined, “as a powerful way to bring a community that already supports its schools to buoy and direct its children more personally and with even more effect.

“As I told the PTA,” Winkes added, “(it is) a way for La Conner to further define and celebrate its commitment to youth and their dreams into new and more open channels. It’s a wonderful thing we can all do together.