Two families breathe new life into legacy scholarship

A scholarship for children and grandchildren of former Maple Leafs is being revived with the help of some generous alumni.

The fund, which was originally created in 1993 by the alumni board, has historically been administered in combination with another alumni scholarship. It is now being revived with the help of Jim ’65 and Lois ’79 Bare and Robert ’56 and Annabelle ’57 Lerch, who all live in Goshen. With their involvement, the fund created in 1993 will be awarded exclusively to legacy students.

The Goshen College Alumni Legacy Fund Scholarship will be available to children of Goshen College alumni who enroll full-time, including first-year and transfer students. To qualify, a parent or grandparent must have attended Goshen College for a minimum of 24 credit hours. Two legacy scholarships will be awarded this year.

“Having been in higher education for 20-plus years, we saw the academic excellence and the Christian atmosphere at Goshen as assets and were concerned that the children and grandchildren of many alumni were seemingly unaware or did not recognize these assets,” Robert Lerch said. “We hope the fund will serve as an encouragement to the children and grandchildren of alumni to consider attending Goshen.”

The Lerch family has been well represented at Goshen College. All four of Robert and Annabelle’s children graduated from the college in the 1980s, and four grandchildren have graduated in the last several years, with three more currently attending. Their eighth grandchild is a senior in high school and has already applied to GC.

“We hope that someday there will be sufficient income from the endowed funds to provide for every entering freshman whose parents or grandparents attended Goshen College,” Robert said.

– By Brian Yoder Schlabach ’07