Cecil W. Gronvall Memorial Scholarship

The Cecil W. Gronvall Memorial Scholarship is created for students majoring in the WSU’s Chemistry program.

Criteria

1. Each recipient must be an undergraduate student enrolled full-time (minimum 12 credit hours) at Winona State University.
2. Each recipient must be classified as a sophomore and be in good standing at Winona State University with a minimum grade point average (G.P.A.) of 3.0(4.0 = A).
3. Each recipient must be a declared major in Winona State University’s Chemistry program.

Biography/Motivation

Cecil W. Gronvall was born February 23, 1913, in Ellsworth Wisconsin and was graduated from Red Wing High School, Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1931, ranking third highest of 105 graduates. He then attended Winona State Teachers College where he was graduated cum laude in 1935 with a Bachelor of Education degree.

Following his graduation from WSTC, he taught chemistry, physics and general science at Litchfield, Minnesota where his physics class placed fourth in the Iowa Every Pupil Test.

He worked as a project superintendent for the Federal Works Agency in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1940 to 1942. From 1942 to 1945 he worked for the Office of Price Administration for the St. Paul District Office as a food enforcement supervisor.

In 1945 he and his wife, Virginia, moved to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a regional enforcement training specialist for the Office of Price Administration until 1947. Cecil then worked on his Master of Public Health Degree which he earned in 1949 from the University of California, Berkeley, in Medical Care Administration. He co-authored an article which was published in the Modern Hospital in January 1951 and surveyed charges to hospital patients for a ten-year period. He took additional work in Educational Administration at San Francisco State College from 1951 to 1953 while employed part-time at the R.H. May Company, San Francisco, in Protection Office work.

In 1953 he felt it would be advantageous to secure enough teaching experience to round out at least two years of such experience and taught chemistry, physics and general science in the Piedmont, California School System from 1953 to 1954 when he returned to the R. H. Macy Company until 1955.

In 1955 Cecil accepted a position of Health Program Specialist with the Alaska Department of Health and Welfare where he remained until 1958 when he took a position of Maternal and Child Health Care Program Administrator with the same agency.

He and Virginia returned to California in 1960 where Cecil served as Chief of Hospital Social Service until his retirement in 1971. His professional affiliations included memberships in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Public Health Association, and the American Radio Relay League.

In his retirement years, Cecil pursued a life-long interest in amateur radio. He taught theory and practice to 250 would-be “hams,” helping each of them to enter the ranks of ham radio operation.

Cecil passed away may 12, 1994. He was married to his wife, Virginia, on September 21, 1940, and as she stated, “Cecil was a man of great personal integrity, and those of us who knew him are richer for it.”