Friday, March 28, 2008 9:51 PM CDT
Scholarship named in honor of teacher Leslee McGinness
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
dfopay@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON — Leslee McGinness followed her mom into teaching, but her mother’s profession may not be what influenced her daughter to go into the same work.
“She liked to read,” said Lucille Lance, who, like McGinness, once taught at Charleston High School. “That was probably my influence on her.”
Now, eight years after McGinness died, Lance is trying to help influence students as both she and her daughter did. She recently established a scholarship that will be presented annually to a CHS graduate who is majoring in one of the subjects McGinness taught: theater, journalism or creative writing.
“I thought it would be some way I could remember her,” Lance said. “It was the natural thing to do.”
The Charleston school district’s Excellence in Education Foundation has agreed to manage the scholarship, which Lance said she hopes will award about $1,500 to a student each year.
Most of the foundation’s work involves providing the district’s teachers with grants for various projects from money that a Consolidated Communications program provides. Still, Charlie Schuster, president of the foundation’s board, said the group agreed to manage the scholarship because it wants to be open to more ways for people to donate money.
“We felt like we needed to do it,” Schuster said. “We thought this would support our mission.”
McGinness received several teaching honors during her years at CHS, where she was also the adviser for school’s student newspaper, yearbook and other organizations. She was also active in Charleston community theater productions. She died in May 2000, shortly after receiving a liver transplant.
“We thought she really epitomized excellence, education and passion for her career,” Schuster said.
Lance taught social studies at CHS from 1963 until 1968, when she began a 36-year career teaching at a community college in Olney, where she still lives. She said her time at the college and seeing some students who began or returned to college later in life helped her decide that the scholarship would be open to any CHS graduate, not just each year’s senior class.
“It could be somebody who’s been out 20 years and came back to school,” she said.
The foundation will review applications for the scholarship and get input from McGinness’ family before making the award, and the first scholarship will probably be announced this year, Schuster said. The foundation will also invest and manage Lance’s endowment of $37,500, he added.
The CHS guidance office already has information on how to apply for the scholarship, Schuster also said.
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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