(2000)
- Created by Paul Buckholt, former Science
teacher at McGuffey High School. The fund provides scholarships to McGuffey
seniors pursuing post secondary education in the field of Science.
As a science teacher Paul Buckholt was involved with McGuffey School District for more than 30 years. He has retired from his teaching position, but his involvement with McGuffey will continue into the future.
Buckholt's ties with McGuffey went beyond teaching chemistry and other science courses. He drove a school bus for the district, was a volunteer at the high school ballgames and volunteered to run the snack machine concession. Over the years McGuffey students ate a lot of snacks, and Buckholt collected the coins from the machines. Sometimes he used the money to provide something a teacher needed, but which wasn't in the budget, or to help one of the student groups. But he set aside most of the money with the idea of using it in some way at some time to benefit the students.
That time came when he retired from teaching in 1999 and began thinking seriously of how to use the money. It was then that a suggestion from his friend Dennis Dutton turned him in the direction of the WCCF.
The result was the Buckholt Science Scholarship Fund of the Foundation. It is set up to award a scholarship each year to a McGuffey senior who wants to pursue a career in science.
A modest man who keeps busy in his retirement, Buckholt is reluctant to discuss the gift he has made to McGuffey students. "The Foundation will take good care of it," he says, "and if that makes other people think about doing something like that, well . . . that's a good thing, too."
Click here for a printable application
Click here for a list of scholarship recipients