In 2020, the Derek Lendosky Memorial Fund opened up the scholarship process to allow for applications to be submitted from schools outside of the Fennimore and Iowa-Grant districts, with intention to still award at least one scholarship from each of those two districts, with no cap on the total number of scholarships given. Without our major camp this year, we were going to be scaling back the scholarship awards, but there were so many deserving students, that we decided to award 8 this year, which is 4 more than the most we have ever awarded since Derek’s memorial was established. Brandee and I would like to take this time to share who we awarded our scholarships to, and share some of the reasons why, and also the applicant’s messages they wrote.
#1 – Alexis Easler, Fennimore, $250: From Alexis’ remembrance, although having not met Derek: “No matter where life takes me, there will be few places that compare to the compassion and kindness of our little town, and I know Derek has a lot to do with that. He looks down on us with sunshine on the softball and baseball fields.” Alexis is also a lifeguard, which we appreciate. Derek’s last birthday party was at the pool the night before he left us and his memory is there with the new pool as well.
#2 – Trenton Klais, Fennimore, $250: Trenton volunteered for many wonderful causes, including being very active in his church and also participating in a mission trip in Texas. We value volunteering and making your community and this world a better place.
#3 and #4 – Ethan and Dillon Koestler, Fennimore $500 each: I am combining them, because we kind of knew which memory they would share of Derek. So I will share this with all of you, through their eyes. And this is so Derek. To this day, we stop and appreciate this time on the clock, because of this. From Ethan, but the same for Dillon: “One of my best memories of Derek from when I was in elementary school was when my mom used to drive us home from summer school every day. He would get super excited whenever we got home at exactly 12:34. It got to the point where he would tell my mom to drive faster or slower depending on the time to ensure that we got in his driveway at exactly 12:34. “ I will note this only here, my in-laws made Derek like the Minnesota Vikings and bought him Vikings gear to wear, which made the Viking fans in the Koestler household, very happy.
#5 – Will Ahen, Fennimore, $500: Will is a neighbor and frequenter of our batting cage in the back yard, something that I should have put in while Derek was still here. “I can envision Derek, Lucas and myself hitting in the batting cage together. I have no doubt that he would have kept track of my football statistics and let me know what was going well and what I needed to work on.” Derek did love his stats.
#6 – Tucker Needham, Wonewoc, $500: I am actually not going to share Tucker’s response, but more my description of what Tucker and his family mean to us. This is what I shared with Wonewoc: “In his application Tucker talks about a couple memories of seeing Derek when he would visit our best friends and next door neighbors, the Larsons. What Tucker forgot to mention in his application, that shortly after Derek left us, we started an Acts of Kindness campaign, one in which he helped start at Wonewoc. A banner hung in the school’s hallways for a period of time, encouraging students to spread kindness. That banner was given to our family and hung for 5 years in our basement, and now is stored with our Acts of Kindness material. For that, we are very thankful. We are very proud to be able to award the Derek Lendosky Memorial Scholarship, in the amount of $500, to Tucker Needham. We know that Tucker will go on to do amazing things. We were blessed enough to be a part of every golf outing in his name and I still have items hanging on my office wall from his fundraisers. We love Tucker and hope that he succeeds in life.” Tucker’s story is one of perseverance and he has a family that has done so much for the research and development for a cure to CF.
#7 – Keagan Pilling, Iowa-Grant, $500: There were a number of wonderful applicants from IG, but Keagan’s application stood out from the rest based on his volunteer work and his work with the Montfort Fire and EMS. I will never forget the day that Derek died, and every single fire and EMS member’s face as they walked or ran past me responding to the 911 call. There are a couple of them whose faces still bring tears to my eyes. We will forever be in debt to those people that volunteer to keep us safe, and Keagan’s willingness to volunteer to do this, is why he was awarded the scholarship. We wish him the best going forward.
#8 – Isaiah Place, Lancaster, $1,000: Isaiah is truly an unique young man. He is very well spoken and will go very far in his life. He is strong in his beliefs and backs them up with facts, which we appreciate. His accomplishments in the extracurricular and scholastic events are amazing. As a fellow Badger Boys State participant, and now sponsor of a participant, we appreciate all he has done. He also took time out of his schedule to volunteer and help coach and teach the young kids baseball at our camps. You couldn’t ask for a better kid to be a role model for your child. That is why we are honored to award this $1,000 scholarship to Isaiah.
Leave a Reply