Spotlight on Donors: Financial Aid

AAFSW
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW) Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2017, after many years of support from the 1990’s through 2015
Biographical Information: AAFSW, established in 1960, is the oldest nongovernmental organization supporting the American diplomatic community. AAFSW is a primary advocate and support network for family members of Foreign Service employees. AAFSW advocacy was responsible for the creation of the Family Liaison Office, Overseas Briefing Center, and the Foreign Service Youth Foundation. AAFSW membership extends to all of the foreign affairs agencies. AAFSW is unique in expressly serving all segments of the Foreign Service community: employees; spouses, partners and other members of household; children of Foreign Service employees; divorced or widowed spouses; as well as retired officers and their partners. www.aafsw.org

 

Norton Bell
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Norton Bell Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2007
Biographical Information: In December 2007, Mr. Norton Bell established a perpetual Financial Aid Scholarship in his name to be first bestowed in the 2008/09 academic year. He served with the Navy in World War II and is a graduate of the University of Illinois. He retired as an engineer from Hewlett Packard in 1986 and went on to become a transcontinental cyclist. Uniquely, Mr. Bell was never in the Foreign Service; he simply has a keen interest in diplomacy. This gift was made tax free from a distribution from Mr. Bell’s IRA after he attended an AFSA sponsored Elderhostel (now Road Scholar, www.roadscholar.org) in Washington, D.C. and thought AFSA’s program was one of the best he had attended. Mr. Bell continues to make annual donations.

 

William E. Cole
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: William E. and Elizabeth M. Cole Perpetual Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year First Awarded: 1999
Biographical Information: Originally, Mr. Cole established the scholarship only in his wife’s name in 1999 but then when he passed away in January 2001, his name was added to the scholarship. Mr. Cole entered the Foreign Service in 1937 after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1932. His first wife, Sara Antrim, died in Rome, Italy in 1942. In 1947, he met and married Elizabeth Penrith. Mr. Cole’s Foreign Service assignments included Rome, Naples, Trieste, Ghana, the Sudan, and Jerusalem. Upon his retirement in 1962, the Coles moved to Beaufort, South Carolina where Mrs. Cole died in 1988. Before marrying Mr. Cole, Elizabeth received the Medal of Freedom for meritorious service as Junior Commander from September 1944 to May 1945 with the British Army. Elizabeth’s contribution to the success of the World War II Allied Military operations in Italy reflects her great courage and dedication.

 

Linda K. Fitzgerald
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Linda K. Fitzgerald Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2015
Biographical Information: Linda Kay Fitzgerald, age 82 of Hamilton Ohio, passed away on December 16, 2013. A Foreign Service secretary from 1962-1983, Ms. Fitzgerald bequeathed the AFSA Scholarship Fund’s largest gift ever of $950,000. This gift will be used to establish a more substantive Community Service Award in her name under AFSA’s Merit Awards Program and expand the Financial Aid Scholarship Program with additional scholarships in her name.
     She was born on July 4, 1931 in Philadelphia, PA the daughter of the late Stanton and Dorothy (Kennedy) Fitzgerald. Her youth was spent in Elyria, Ohio where she graduated from Elyria High School in 1949. Upon graduating from Miami University where she was a member of Alpha Omicron Pi, she attended Katherine Gibbs School in New York City. Linda's professional 21 year career was spent first with the State Department and then transferred to the United States Information Agency. Her first post was in Tehran, Iran and her final posting was in Paris, France. In between, she lived in Africa, Europe and Asia with two years spent in Saigon, Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
     She retired to Hamilton, Ohio where she pursued her interests in historic and wildlife preservation. Her last years were spent at Westover Retirement Community where she received compassionate and professional care.

 

Terence Flannery
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Terence Flannery Memorial Annual Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2011
Biographical Information: Mrs. Laurence Flannery, widow of Mr. Terence Flannery first established the scholarship in December 2011 and has contributed to it ever since.
     Terence Flannery, a retired Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) officer passed away on October 28, 2009 in Paris, France after a short illness. He attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.
     Prior to his Foreign Service career, Mr. Flannery served in the Air Force and then worked in the private sector for Link, a flight simulator company in Binghamton, New York. In 1984, Mr. Flannery joined FCS. His first overseas posting was Paris, where he served from 1984-1988. His next tours were in Algiers, London, and Brussels. After FCS retirement, Mr. Flannery resumed a career in the private sector, working first for a consulting firm, APCO, in Paris, and then on different projects for The Wall Street Journal Europe Future Leadership Institute in Brussels.
     He is survived by his wife. They have no children.

 

Anthony G. “Tony” Freeman
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Anthony G. “Tony” Freeman Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2007
Biographical Information: Anthony G. “Tony” Freeman, the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for International Labor Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor (DRL), served as a medic in the U.S. Army in Germany and received a Master degree in Public Administration from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, University in 1960. He joined the Foreign Service in 1961 and served as a Political Officer and Labor Officer in Argentina, Spain, Bolivia, Brazil and Italy. He was Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and coordinator of International Labor Affairs from 1983 to 1993 when he became the Deputy Assistant Secretary in DRL. After retiring from the State Department in 1994, Mr. Freeman was named director of the Washington office of the International Labor Organization (ILO), a position he held for 10 years until his second retirement in 2004. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Maria Elisa Freeman of Bethesda, twin daughters and two grandchildren, as well as other relatives and a multitude of friends and colleagues around the world.

 

Marc Grossman and Mildred Patterson
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: The Marc Grossman and Mildred Patterson Perpetual Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2005
Biographical Information: Ambassador Grossman had been a career Foreign Service Officer since 1976. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the State Department from June 2000 until March 2001. Ambassador Grossman was also Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs from August 1997 to May 2000. Ambassador Grossman completed his service as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs on February 25, 2005 when he retired. After that Amb. Grossman became a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, the strategic business-consulting firm founded and headed by former Secretary of Defense and U.S. Senator William Cohen in June 2005. Ambassador Grossman earned a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MS in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is married to Mildred Patterson, who was also a Foreign Service Officer. Mildred Patterson joined the Foreign Service in 1976 and was immediately posted to Copenhagen, Denmark where she worked as a consular officer as well as a political officer and assistant cultural affairs officer. She was then assigned to the Department of State's Operations Center as a watch officer. Ambassador Grossman and Ms. Patterson have a daughter who attends Emery University.

 

Colonel Richard R. Hallock
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Colonel Richard R. Hallock Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2004
Biographical Information: As a parachutist in the infantry Airborne, Colonel Richard Hallock served in both World War II and the Korean War. Colonel Hallock had a distinguished military career that ran from 1942 to 1967. He was a Platoon Leader for fifty-plus firefights in Italy, southern France, Holland, the Ardennes, and the Rhine crossing. In Korea, he was the youngest-ever Major serving as a Battalion Commander. He earned 23 medals and commendations including the Legion of Merit. As well as his work in the military, Colonel Hallock made many civilian achievements including pioneering for the Rand Corporation all new combat historical approach to Systems Analysis and serving as Secretary Schlesinger’s personal representative to Turkey and Iran for overhauling procurement. Colonel Hallock formed his own research and Analysis Company as well as a commercial real estate company before his death in 1999.

 

Oliver Bishop Harriman
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Oliver Bishop Harriman Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1964
Biographical Information: Diplomatic Secretary Oliver B. Harriman died suddenly of heart disease in 1926. Mr. Harriman had been Charge d'Affaires in Copenhagen. Mrs. Elizabeth T. Harriman, Oliver’s mother, wanted to honor her son’s memory by establishing a scholarship. This is AFSA’s first scholarship and how the AFSA Scholarship Program was “born.” Mrs. Harriman’s exact words were, “I make no restrictions, wishing merely that something for the good of the Service should be established.” Oliver Bishop Harriman was born in New York City in 1887. Mr. Harriman attended Rugby Preparatory School and the Morristown School before entering Harvard. He served as private secretary to the Ambassador to Chile and, after examination, was appointed in 1915 as Secretary of Embassy of Class Five. He served in Berlin, Vienna, Havana, Mexico, Montevideo, London and Copenhagen.

 

Louis and Valeria Hebert
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Louis and Valeria Hebert Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2016
Biographical Information: Louis C. Hebert joined the Army Infantry in 1943, as a private. He was only 18 at the time and served until 1946. He was the proud recipient of a purple heart for his service during WWII. Louis then joined the U.S. Department of State in the Foreign Service division and was sent him to Paris to study French. During his employment with the State Department, Louis was lucky enough to meet his wife during a State Department reception. The two celebrated their marriage in St. Stephens’s Church on December 31, 1968 in Washington DC. During his position as a Personal Officer for the Service Branch of the State Department, he was responsible for reviewing all personnel matters. He oversaw salary, hiring and classifications that would allow the State Department to work more seamlessly with foreign countries’ labor laws. Louis also took part in making changes that improved efficiency and morale at embassies and bases around the world. Throughout his 35 years in the Foreign Service, they had the opportunity to travel to places including Russia, China, United Arab Emirates, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Washington D.C.
     Louis passed away in November of 2014, when he was 89 years old. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

 

Marilyn Holmes
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Marilyn Holmes Annual Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2016
Biographical Information: An award winning documentary producer for the U.S. State Department and a former Director of the State Department's Family Liaison Office, passed away Tuesday, May 17, 2016 at Georgetown University Hospital. She was 82.
     Marilyn Holmes was born in Paris, France, in 1934. After her formative years spent in the U.S. and France, she dove into education and cultural exchange, working for the U.S. Information Service in Cambodia and producing documentaries for newly emerging African nations in the late 1950's. She married a Foreign Service Officer, Allen Holmes, in 1959, continuing her documentary projects and started her adventure in the Foreign Service.
     In 1997, Marilyn Holmes received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Public Service Award for her work as Executive Producer of the State Department's Video Production Unit. She was recognized for her innovative television news programs designed to keep employees informed on the latest diplomatic developments.
     Marilyn Janet Strauss is survived by her husband of 56 years, the Honorable H. Allen Holmes, her two children, Katherine Holmes-Chuba and Gerry Holmes and four grandchildren, Nick, Olivia, Alexander and Aidan.

 

Harriet Winsar Isom
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Harriet Winsar Isom Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1983
Biographical Information: Born in 1936 in the state of Oregon, she grew up on a ranch near Pendleton. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in history and government from Mills College in Oakland, California. She has a Master of Arts in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts. She speaks Indonesian and French. Ambassador Harriet Isom has been a career foreign service officer since 1961, with geographic concentration in Asia and Africa. Early in her career, she held political, economic, consular and personnel positions in the Department of State and at United States Embassies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Niger, and Burundi.

 

Prabhi G. Kavaler
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Prabhi G. Kavaler Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1998
Biographical Information: Prabhi Kavaler was one of 11 U.S. citizens killed in the terrorist bombing of the US Nairobi, Kenya Embassy on August 7, 1998. Prabhi Guptara Kavaler, born in India, chose a second tour in Africa with her husband so they could introduce their two young American daughters to the exotic life that Prabhi so loved. Howard, 48 and Prabhi, 43 made a career of the U.S. Foreign Service. This husband-wife team was at work in the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. They were several rooms apart when the bomb exploded; Prabhi was killed instantly. In October 1998, Howard Kavaler established an AFSA perpetual scholarship in Prabhi’s name. In their work, the couple had been assigned to Pakistan; Philippines; Israel; Paris and Nairobi, once before from 1990-1992. Prabhi was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. On the one-year anniversary of the bombing, four cherry trees were planted and a memorial plaque was dedicated at the Fairfax County Library in McLean, VA. This was done to honor Prabhi’s memory and her love of reading, particularly English literature.

 

Douglas Keene
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Douglas Keene Perpetual/Sharon Papp Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2016
Biographical Information: Mr. Keene joined the Foreign Service in 1967, and assigned to Vietnam as his first post in 1968. Successive overseas assignments included Warsaw, Poland in 1971-73 and Karachi, Pakistan from 1973-75. Then Doug served as the first Political Military Officer in Cairo, Egypt from 1980-83. He was next assigned as Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem 1983-86, and then Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman from 1986-89. He was named Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs during the first Gulf War. He returned to the Middle East as Deputy Chief of Mission to the Embassy in Amman, Jordan from 1991 to 1994. Upon returning to the U.S. in 1994, Doug acted as a Senior Advisor for Middle East Affairs in the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. General Assembly every fall from 1995-2000. He ended his career working at the State Department Historian's Office and the Office of Press Relations before retiring in 2002. During his career, Doug received many awards for her service including a Cross of Merit of the Order of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre.
     Sharon Papp, AFSA General Counsel assisted Mr. Keene with an employment issue in 1998/99 and provided very effective legal counsel. Mr. Keene was very grateful for the support Ms. Papp and AFSA provided and the Keenes’ wished to recognize Sharon by including her name in the scholarship.

 

Daniel Kiang
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Kiang Fund for Excellence Financial Aid Scholarship
First Year Awarded: 2012
Biographical Information: Mr. Daniel Kiang, 67, a retired State Department FSO lost his life to lung cancer in July 2011. In his will, he established an AFSA scholarship called the “Kiang Fund for Excellence” with a $100,000 gift, which AFSA received in March 2012. Mr. Kiang was born in China and received degrees from Dartmouth College and Columbia University. He served in the Army and joined the Foreign Service in 1979. Mr. Kiang spent most of his career in the East Asia and Pacific Bureau of the State Department either in Washington, DC. or abroad. His overseas assignments included London, Beijing, Shenyang, Taipei, Hong, Kong, and Kuala Lumpur. Mr. Kiang retired in 2004. However after retirement, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in the spring of 2005, despite never having smoked in his life. After initial treatment, his cancer went into remission, and he went on to work as a When Actually Employed (WAE) annuitant. The disease recurred in 2007, and, after four years, it overwhelmed his defenses.

 

Naomi and Elbert Mathews
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Naomi M. and Elbert G. Mathews Perpetual Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
First Year Awarded: 2003
Biographical Information: The Mathews’ bequeathed over $800,000 to the AFSA Scholarship Fund in 2002, the largest gift ever made the AFSA Scholarship Fund. Elbert G. Mathews, accompanied and assisted by his wife Naomi M. Mathews, served for 37 years in the Foreign Service in five countries on three continents. He was ambassador to Liberia in 1959 and ambassador to Nigeria from 1964-69. The Mathews' had no children of their own but many who knew them were not surprised by their generous gift to promote the education of Foreign Service children. Naomi Mathews served as the AAFSW president from 1970-1972 and participated in AAFSW's oral history program. Mrs. Mathews' niece, Pam Brody recalls, “My aunt was independent, cultured and a very proper woman. She introduced me to the arts by taking me to plays, art exhibits, and concerts when back in the United States from overseas assignments. Even through her later years in life, she regularly invited women to over for formal tea still using her silver tea service for her days as a Foreign Service wife."

 

Joshua Lane-Holman McMackle
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Joshua Lane-Holman McMackle Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2015
Biographical Information: Ms. Tracy McMackle, active duty FAS FSO established a memorial, perpetual financial aid scholarship in memory of her son, Joshua. He was tragically shot attending a street party as an 18 year old freshman college in April 2010 near the campus of his college, Texas Southern University. In 2015, Ms. McMackle was able to accrue the funds to bring this tribute to fruition.
     Joshua spent the majority of his life living abroad in Brussels, Bonn, Berlin, Moscow, and Tokyo, before attending Randolph-Macon Academy his junior and senior year of high school where he learned to fly Cessna aircraft and played on the varsity basketball team. Being a “third culture kid,” he found it easier to say he was from his father's home state of Virginia, which is how he got the nickname, "VA." Tracy says, “It gives me comfort to know that Joshua's name will live on and that this memorial scholarship will be helping others.”

 

Everett K. and Clara C. Melby
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Everett K. and Clara C. Melby Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2003
Biographical Information: Everett Kinney Melby was born in 1915 in Portland, Oregon. Clara Crommelin Melby was born July 9, 1909 in Modjowarno, Indonesia, where her parents were Dutch missionaries. Mr. Melby was Assistant Secretary General of the European Student Relief Fund in Geneva from 1939-42 where he traveled in occupied Europe to helped students, particularly in France and Eastern Europe. He joined the State Department in 1942. While working in Geneva, Switzerland in the early 1940s for the World Council of Churches, Clara met Everett. They were married in 1944. From 1942-48 Everett served in Bern, Switzerland, from 1948-51, in Athens, Greece. In 1951 he attended Columbia University obtaining his masters in German while assigned to Washington in EUR and INR bureaus. From 1952-1956, he served in Bonn, from 1960-1964 he served as Consul General in Georgetown, British Guiana. From 1964-1966, Mr. Melby was Consul General in Frankfurt, Germany before becoming Deputy Chief of Mission in Port-au-Prince, Haiti from 1967-70. Then, he became Consul General in Quebec, Canada from 1970-1974. Mr. Melby retired in 1974.
     Clara Melby accompanied her husband to all his assignments. She was active in the community at each of these posts, and the Melby’s had four children. Mrs. Melby was keenly interested in different cultures and gardening and was an active supporter of local artisans. She spoke Dutch, French, German and English fluently. Clara Melby died January 2, 1992 in Montreal, Canada where she and Everett Melby had lived since they retired from the Foreign Service. Mr. Melby died on March 30, 2003 in Brooklyn, New York. Their Melby children established this AFSA scholarship in 2003 and Mr. Eric Melby, their son continues to make annual gifts to this scholarship.

 

Marcia Martin and Brockman M. Moore
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Marcia Martin and Brockman M. Moore Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
First Year Awarded: 2007
Biographical Information: Marcia Moore, a career Foreign Service Officer, died June 20, 1980 in Sarasota, Florida. She was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for 28 years with service in Guatemala, Japan, Italy, Vietnam, England, West Africa, and Austria. Her last assignment was in the Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs. She retired to Sarasota in June 1976. A scholarship was established at the time of Mrs. Moore’s death by her husband, Mr. Brockman Moore. Mr. Brockman M. Moore died in 2005. The Moore’s had no children. Mr. Moore last resided in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Moore designated the AFSA Scholarship Fund as the beneficiary of his Charitable Remainder Trust whose approximate value was $157,000 which the AFSA Scholarship Fund received in October 2006. Mr. Moore also bequeathed his estate (about $700,000) to the AFSA Scholarship Fund and a scholarship established in Mr. Moore’s name in the 2007/08 school year. In 2016/17 school year the two scholarships were combined into one and renamed to the above award.

 

Mattie and George Newman
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Mattie and George Newman Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
First Year Awarded: 2009
Biographical Information: George Newman worked for the US government from 1945 until he joined the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer in 1951. Soon after he met Mattie and they married. Mattie passed away in November 2003, and George Newman died in April 2008. He and his wife left their estate equally split between their foster daughter, Janet (Roseman) Bayless and the AFSA Scholarship Fund. The Newman’s never had children and became close to Elvin and Edith Roseman and their daughter Janet. The AFSA Scholarship Fund ultimately will receive over $650,000 from the Newman Trust, which will be used for AFSA need-based undergraduate financial aid scholarships.

 

David D. Newsom
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: David D. Newsom Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
First Year Awarded: 2008
Biographical Information: The David D. Newsom Financial Aid Scholarship was established in November 2008 through memorial contributions from friends and a very generous donation from his widow, Mrs. Jean Newsom. Ambassador Newsom was born in Richmond, California, attended UC Berkeley and Columbia University’s School of Journalism. He joined the Foreign Service in 1947. In his long and distinguished career, he served as Ambassador to Libya, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He was Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, and retired as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in 1981. Thereafter he served as Director of the Institute of Diplomacy at Georgetown and as Professor of International Affairs at the University of Virginia. He died in May 2009 and is survived by his wife and five children.

 

Martin G. Patterson
Established Under Which AFSA Program:  Financial Aid Scholarship 
Name of Award:  Martin G. Patterson Memorial Perpetual Financial Aid Scholarship 
Year First Awarded: 2004
Biographical Information: Martin (Marty) Patterson, an FSO with the Foreign Agriculture Service, passed away suddenly from heart failure on July 2, 2003 while visiting his parents in Louisiana. His wife, Constanza, and three daughters survive him. The award will be bestowed to a child of an FAS or APHIS employee, if at all possible. When the Patterson children are old enough, they can apply to receive this award. Donated by Eric Wenberg, Mike Conlon (both FAS employees) and other friends of Martin's.

 

Rozanne L. (Roz) Ridgway
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship Program
Name of Award: Rozanne L. (Roz) Ridgway Financial Aid Scholarship
Year First Awarded: 2010
Biographical Information: Amb. Ridgway was a member of the Foreign Service for 32 years from 1957 to 1989. Her diplomatic career included postings as Ambassador to Finland and Ambassador to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). She is perhaps best know, however, as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs (1985-1989) who was the principal representative of President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz in organizing, managing and documenting the Reagan-Gorbachev summits. Present “at the table” at all five historic U.S.-Russia summits between the two leaders of these super power nations, she received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan in recognition of her service. Amb. Ridgway’s principal activity in her twenty years since retirement from the Foreign Service has been a corporate director serving on the board of some of America’s largest and best know corporations. She is married to Captain Theodore E. Deming, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired).

 

George P. Shultz
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: George P. Shultz Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1989
Biographical Information: George P. Shultz was sworn in on July 16, 1982 as the 60th U.S. Secretary of State under the Reagan administration. Mr. Shultz graduated from Princeton University in 1942 receiving a B.A. degree in Economics. That year he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served until 1945. In 1949, Mr. Shultz earned a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Economics from the Massachusetts Institute to Technology. He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957. In 1957, Mr. Shultz was appointed Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. He was named Dean of the Graduate School of Business in 1962. Mr. Shultz served in the Administration of President Nixon as Secretary of Labor for 18 months from 1969 to June 1970. He became Secretary of the Treasury in May 1972 serving until 1974. During that period, Mr. Shultz served also as Chairman of the Council on Economic Policy. As Chairman of the East-West Trade Policy Committee, Mr. Shultz traveled to Moscow in 1972 and negotiated a series of trade protocols with the Soviet Union. He also represented the U.S. at the Tokyo meeting of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Shultz was Chairman of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board. At President Reagan's request, Mr. Shultz in May 1982 met with leaders in Europe, Japan, and Canada to assist in preparations for the Versailles Economic Summit.
     Secretary Shultz established the scholarship in 1989.

 

Victor H. and Ruth Nay Skiles
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship Program
Name of Award: Victor H. Skiles Memorial and Ruth Nay Skiles Financial Aid Scholarship
Year First Awarded: 2012
Biographical Information: Victor Henry Skiles passed away in 2011. Mrs. Skiles established this scholarship in May 2012, bestowed for the first time in the 2012/13 school year. Mr. Skiles traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1940, to serve as an intern with the National Institute of Public Affairs and was assigned to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1942, Mr. Skiles enlisted in the Navy and was stationed in the Pacific theater as an officer. At the end of World War II, because of his experience with the Agriculture Department, he was asked to join the Quadripartite Control Council in Berlin, Germany, assisting war refugees and displaced persons. In all of his overseas work, Mr. Skiles focused on programs that contributed to improvements in education, agriculture, public health and administration, and food security.

 

Omar Sykes
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Omar Sykes Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2013
Biographical Information: Omar Sykes was a rising senior and marketing major at the Howard University School of Business when he tragically was killed on July 4, 2013 near his apartment a block from Howard University. He was active on campus as a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity and participated in Blue Crew, a student group supporting the school’s sports teams. His mother, Sherry Sykes, an AFSA member, is currently serving in Washington, D.C. (October 2016). He is also survived by his sisters, Jamila Sykes and Halima Sykes Dumas. The funds donated from family and friends ($19,000 as of December 2013) have established a need-based, undergraduate scholarship in Omar Sykes’ name bestowed on a student whose parent is an active duty or retired Foreign Service employee who is an AFSA member. The recipient will attend a Historically Black College or University (HBCU).

 

Christopher and Eliza Van Hollen
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Christopher and Eliza Van Hollen Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 2013
Biographical Information: Ambassador Christopher Van Hollen Sr., a career State Department officer who became an authority in Southeast Asian affairs and a leading diplomatic voice during the volatile birth of Bangladesh, died Jan. 30, 2013 at the age of 90 due to complications associated with Alzheimer’s disease. His wife, Edith Eliza Van Hollen, who was recognized as one of the top U.S. government foreign policy and intelligence analysts on Afghanistan and South Asia, died of cancer three years earlier, on Feb. 21, 2007 at the age of 79. The Van Hollens are survived by their three children (Christopher Van Hollen Jr. of Maryland, Caroline Van Hollen of Washington, and Cecilia Van Hollen of Fayetteville, N.Y.) and five grandchildren. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. (D) is the U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district, serving since 2003.

 

John Campbell White
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: John Campbell White Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1966
Biographical Information: John Campbell White, first United States Ambassador to Haiti and former Ambassador to Peru, died on June 11, 1967 in New York. Ambassador White retired in 1945 after 31 years in the Foreign Service, where he served in Santo Domingo, Bangkok, Warsaw, Kabul, Berlin, and Buenos Aires. Ambassador White was the son of Henry White, Ambassador to Italy and France and a signer of the Treaty of Versailles. John Campbell White entered the Foreign Service in 1914. He was the first president of DACOR (Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired). The daughter of Ambassador White, Mrs. Tapley Bennett has consistently added annually to this scholarship.

 

Sheldon Whitehouse
Established Under Which AFSA Program: Financial Aid Scholarship
Name of Award: Sheldon Whitehouse Memorial Financial Aid Scholarship
Year Established: 1990
Biographical Information: Ambassador Charles Whitehouse and his sister Sylvia Blake established the Sheldon Whitehouse Memorial Scholarship in 1990 in honor of their father. Sheldon Whitehouse began his career in the Foreign Service in 1909. He served in Caracas, Constantinople, Athens, Montenegro, and Madrid; and was Minister Plenipotentiary in Guatemala and Colombia. His children recall that he had vivid memories of his tours in Paris in the 1920s coinciding with a colorful era of history - the first transatlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh. He also served a stressful post in Petrograd, Russia in 1917, during the Russian Revolution. The Whitehouse family has continued the Foreign Service and public service tradition through Ambassador Charles Whitehouse, his son who was president of AFSA from 1981 to 1982. His grandson Ambassador Robert Blake Jr., presently assigned to Washington, and another grandson is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island who has been in office since 2007.