Milford and Rosie Roupp Music Scholarship

Milford and Rosie Roupp, our parents, loved music and cared very much for education and the church. We felt a scholarship in their memory encompassing all three aspects would be a fitting tribute to them. They provided a music education for their four daughters and also assisted in their grandchildren’s training. We felt that one way to thank them would be to create a scholarship at Goshen College in their name, helping to make music lessons a possibility for others also.

Milford and Rosie lived in Hesston, Kansas until the last several years of their lives when they moved to Goshen to be closer to a daughter. They both graduated from Hesston College and attended several other universities, but neither of them ever attended Goshen College. Two of their daughters and their husbands though, graduated from GC, along with three grandsons. Another grandson attended one year. Their granddaughter was involved in both the GC piano and strings pre-college preparatory departments.

Between the four daughters, we play/ed piano, guitar, trumpet, French horn, cello, and we like to sing.  Every family get-together includes an evening singing around the piano or with guitars and sometimes an accordion. Three of the husbands are musicians.  Milford and Rosie’s granddaughter, the only family member to choose music as a career, is a piano performance doctoral student but each of the six grandsons play one or two instruments – piano/keyboard, guitar, violin, drums, and trombone.  We’ve all benefited from music lessons of some sort while in school and we would like to “pass it on.”

We are especially interested to have the scholarship go to a non-music major student as we felt there might not be as many scholarships available to that sort of student. However, we would like to keep open the possibility that it is for a student who needs it, as opposed to requiring that it be a non-music major.  As music has so enriched each of our lives, we hope this small gift will help to enhance the scholarship recipient’s life as well. And through that recipient, other lives may also in turn, be made richer.

The Roupp girls, husbands, and grandson who contributed to this scholarship:

Valerie and Bill Cooper, Sherry and Mark Jordan, Janelle and Steve Diller, Patrice and Ed Erickson, Nat Jordan, grandson