The Dr. Paul Pipik Fund for Study in the Health Services supports the higher education of Bethlehem-Center High School graduates pursuing careers in the health field.

The son of a Slovak immigrant coal miner, Paul Pipik was born and raised in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, (Vesta 7). He was the second of seven children and attended Centerville High School. From his early childhood he knew that he wanted to be a doctor, using the Monongahela Valley as his science lab.

Upon high school graduation he worked with his father and uncles in the coal mines for one year, earning enough money to go up to Cleveland where he worked until he enrolled in college. He worked on a loading dock in a factory and later as a hospital orderly while attending John Carroll University. As part of the Navy V12 training he completed his pre-med work at John Carroll and was sent to the University of Illinois "Chicago" where he completed his medical degree in 1947.

Dr. Pipik served in the United States Navy for 2 years before entering private practice in 1951. For over 30 years he worked in several hospitals in the Cleveland, Ohio community, serving as Chief Surgeon for many years at both Deaconess Hospital and Parma Hospital. He died in 1985 at the age of 62. His wife, Frances, and their ten children established the endowment in his memory in 2002. Dr. Pipik still has family living in Brownsville and the surrounding Pittsburgh communities.

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