Pamela Kay Heuslein Memorial Scholarship

The Pamela Kay Heuslein Memorial Scholarship is created to encourage and reward a student who is academically diligent and majoring in Teacher Education at WSU. An emphasis and desire in the area of reading emphasis is preferred.

Criteria

1. Each recipient must be enrolled full-time at Winona State University.
2. Each recipient must be a graduate of the Caledonia High School, Caledonia Minnesota, regardless of merit or need. If no student from Caledonia High School is attending WSU, then a financially needy student from Houston County, Western Wisconsin or southeastern Minnesota, or a financially needy international student from Norway, or if not, an international student of financial need.

Biography/Motivation

Pamela Kay Heuslein was born June 10, 1947, in Boscobel, Wisconsin to Darrell and Allana (Ewers) George. In 1991 she was married to Steve Heuslein, by Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Steve, her husband, and his mother, Betty Heuslein, along with Pam’s children, Tiffany and Brad, and her grandchildren, Ross, Caity, and Rylie, miss her so much they have named this Teaching Scholarship in her memory and honor.

A natural born teacher, Pam was what all children dream their favorite teacher would be.
No child in Pams classroom was ever left behind. Her greatest happiness was in knowing in her heart all children in her midst have mastered the discovery and delight of reading and writing.
Pam began a career in elementary education with the Caledonia, Minnesota public school system that spanned thirty-four years. She is fondly remembered as a compassionate teacher who always put the needs of others before those of herself. Papermaking and making books with children were favorite activities. She was proud to be a host parent to many foreign exchange students through the Youth for Understanding (YFU) program. She has a great love of the welfare of children and of animals, including her own four dogs and five horses. Each and every child was a treasure; teaching them her passion. She remarked her students gave her many more gifts in their sharing of their world than she gave them in return.
Everyone in Pams sphere of influence was a very special child. It was Pams hope all teachers would inspire the children in their classroom to discover the excitement and joy that comes with reading. It is the wish of Steve Heuslein, their children and grandchildren and his mother Betty, that the gift of this scholarship will motivate each recipient to be the teacher who inspires their students to love reading, and the teacher all children dream their favorite teacher to be.
The following poem epitomizes all that Pam is and forever lives on through this teaching scholarship.

GONE FROM MY SIGHT
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: There, she is gone!
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: There, she is gone! there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: Here she comes!
And that is dying.
Henry Van Dyke

Steve Heuslein would like this scholarship to reflect the spirit and passion of Pam Heusleins teaching
career.