Evelyn Stephan Scholarship

The Evelyn Stephan Scholarship is created for freshmen students who graduated from Plainview High School in Minnesota. The student must be the highest ranked graduating Honors senior from Plainview High School. If no Honors student attends WSU, then the scholarship is to be awarded to a senior who has a high school GPA of 3.3 or higher.

Criteria

Each recipient must be an undergraduate student enrolled full-time (i.e., minimum of twelve credits per semester) at WSU.
Each recipient must be born in the USA, and be born of American born citizens
Each recipient must be one of the following, in order of importance:
1. An incoming Freshman student from Plainview, MN, that is physically challenged
2. OR the top incoming Freshmen student from Plainview, MN
3. OR a student from the State of Minnesota with preference to residents of the following counties: Wabasha County or Winona County in Minnesota; either a student who is physically challenged; OR the top student in the respective high school class.
4. OR, if no students meet the above criteria, the award will go to an incoming freshman from the State of Minnesota, with preference to Wabasha and Winona County, with the greatest financial need
Each recipient must demonstrate financial need as determined by the financial situation of the student and through WSU’s Financial Aid Office, but not solely on the FAFSA.

Biography/Motivation

Evelyn Stephan, originally from Plainview, MN, graduated from Winona State Teachers College in 1948 with majors in math and social science and a minor in art. After graduation, she taught math for a year in Boise, Idaho, before taking a position in the Cleveland Public Library (Ohio) in the children’s department. While there, she read a newspaper article about opportunities overseas with the United States Army libraries.

After an interview and many inoculations, she left home on the day before Christmas in 1950 and crossed the country on a troop train to San Francisco. She then took a Navy transport ship across the Pacific Ocean to Japan. After a stop in Yokohama, she made Okinawa home for the next few years, followed by a year in South Korea.

As it seemed that library work would be her career, Evelyn went to the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) where she received her master’s degree in library science in 1957. She then spent ten years with Army libraries in Germany, two years at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and 15 months in Vietnam. She returned to Fort Bragg for a few years as head librarian of a system consisting of a main library, five branches and two bookmobiles. After returning to Germany in 1976 for a three-year tour, she went back to Fort Bragg and retied in 1983 after 30 years with Army libraries.

Living overseas gave her opportunities for travel to many countries.

Evelyn died in 2003 of lung cancer. Her brother John is devoted to the memory of Evelyn and continues to support her scholarship to give assistance to promising students who attend WSU.