Haines High School students will soon be eligible for a new scholarship opportunity. When former Haines resident Vera Smith died in 2016, she left well over half a million dollars to fund a scholarship in memory of her late husband. But the format of the William George Seig scholarship is still unclear.
There’s more than one way to manage $622,000 in scholarship money. Last year the executor of Vera Smith’s will asked the Haines Borough School Board for its recommendation of how to format the scholarship. Haines Borough School District Superintendent Roy Getchell says its a huge opportunity.
“What we know is that we want to honor her wishes and try to make sure those wishes live on forever for the benefit of Haines students,” he said.
To sustain a scholarship in perpetuity, the money would stay in an investment account. Its interest earnings would be the yearly scholarship amount. What remains to be decided is if that money would go to one recipient or be divided among the whole graduating class.
“The task that we’ve had is to look at the will and give some feedback and give some options for what that might be,” said Getchell.
Some board members have children that may benefit from the scholarship, so they decided to open the issue to community comment for three weeks. That way the community could help decide how to distribute the money.
Thirty community members engaged with the survey and fifteen takers made suggestions. Getchell plans to summarize all of the data collected by the school this week. He will send that and all the raw data to the executor, who will make the final decision.
