Farr Scholarship Fund will continue

7/15/2013

Alexa Sanders

This is a busy summer for Alexa Sanders.

The 23-year-old just completed her final semester of graduate school at Miami University and the accounting major is studying for the Certified Public Accounting examination she will take this summer.

A 2008 Start graduate, Sanders received her undergraduate degree from Miami and graduated in 3½ years without mounds of college debt.

Sanders, who graduated from Start with a 3.8 grade-point average, was a recipient of the Jamie Farr Scholarship Fund that is awarded annually to promising college-bound students through funds raised from the LPGA golf tournament held at Highland Meadows Golf Club.

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“I come out of college, even after five years, with very few loans in comparison to some of my friends,” said Sanders, who received $3,000 each year from the Farr Scholarship Fund while as an undergraduate.

The Farr Scholarship is one of dozens of charitable programs or funds that has been established since the local LPGA tournament was established in 1984. The tournament, now called the Marathon Classic presented by Owens Corning and O-I, has donated nearly $8 million to more than 110 local children’s charities.

Sanders, who is getting married this summer and beginning her career as an accountant for a Cincinnati firm, is one of 70 students who have benefited from the Farr Scholarship fund.

“That’s what the whole tournament is about, raising funds for children’s charities,” said Sandy White, Marathon Classic director of operations.

White said $689,500 has been distributed to winners of the scholarship. Four students are selected for the scholarship every year, which results in 16 students receiving $3,000 a year for a total annual distribution of $48,000.

Even though the name of the tournament has been changed this year with Marathon Petroleum’s financial involvement, there are no plans to change either the scope or the name of the scholarship.

White expressed it was important to the tournament’s board of trustees to honor the Toledo-born actor whose name graced the tournament for nearly three decades.

“It will continue on and it will be named after him forever,” White said.

A committee annually selects the winners of the scholarship based upon academics and financial need as well as community involvement and extracurricular activities.

Conner Kenney is a 2011 Start graduate heading into his junior year at Ohio State. The bio-medical engineering/​pre-medicine student is also a Farr scholarship recipient.

“The impact of the scholarship for me is I wouldn’t be able to be where I’m at right now,” he said. “Being at OSU has allowed me to meet new people and an opportunity to open up to new experiences.”

The 20-year-old aspires to serve as a trauma surgeon specializing in the field of skin tissue.

Michaela Marincic, a 2012 Findlay graduate who graduated with a 4.815 grade-point average, recently completed her freshman year at St. Olaf College, a small liberal arts college in Northfield, Minn.

Marincic, a psychology/​English double-major student, is a Farr Scholarship recipient who isn’t even sure she would be attending the out-of-state college without the additional funds provided through the scholarship.

In high school, Marincic was involved in several extracurricular activities, including theater and the school newspaper.

She said St. Olaf offers the arts and culture environment she was looking for in a college.

“The Jamie Farr scholarship has definitely helped me a lot,” Marincic said. “I was elated to get the scholarship, but kind of humbled at the same time.”