SPOKANE, Wash. — A Washington State University nursing scholarship will now serve twice as many students, thanks to the first state match from the Undergraduate Fellowship Program approved by the Washington Legislature last spring.
The match increases the endowed Karen Johnson Doke Memorial Scholarship for Nursing at the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education/WSU College of Nursing from $25,000 to $50,000. The scholarship, created in 1997, will support two WSU nursing students each year.
WSU was chosen randomly from those institutions in Washington eligible to receive one undesignated grant from the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board through the state’s matching undergraduate fellowship program. The grant matches the original $25,000 endowment established by Glenn and Kathryn Johnson, the parents of Karen Johnson Doke, in 1997.
Karen and her husband, Jeffrey Doke, died in a car accident on Dec. 23, 1996 while on their way to visit her parents in Pullman. Karen was a 1996 cum laude graduate of WSU’s nursing college. Jeffrey graduated from WSU in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and in 1994 with a master’s degree in environmental science and regional planning.
“Kathy and I felt that the endowed scholarship would keep some of her goals alive by allowing someone else to complete their nursing education,” said Glenn Johnson, an associate professor in communication at WSU.
The match will help more nursing students by enabling the fund to generate two scholarships each year instead of one, Johnson said.
Two nursing students, 1997 graduate Shelly Harty and fourth semester nursing student Amber Staples, have already received the scholarship. Two scholarships will be awarded again this spring.
“The Karen Johnson Doke Memorial Scholarship in Nursing is an appropriate choice for this match,” said Dorothy Detlor, dean of the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education/WSU College of Nursing. “This scholarship is in memory of an outstanding graduate who truly demonstrated in her life and her career the service commitment of the nursing profession.”
mg129-98
