Lessons

Okay, kids. It’s story time.

Once upon a time, there was a couple that decided to give every graduating student at Oregon’s Philomath High School a scholarship for college, about $4,000, or the cost of tuition at Oregon State University. The reasoning was that students from a logging town didn’t have to grow up to be the next generation of loggers. They could become anything they wanted, if they worked hard. The money? Well, it was a break some people needed. Not everyone with brains could make it. The sad fact was you needed money to get ahead. Just like Harry Potter, sometimes kids need a boost from a generous benefactor when starting out.

And get head these kids did. Since 1959, thousands of young students in the Philomath area of Oregon went on to college on the scholarships, and college attendance boosted up to 70 percent…all due to a promise made long ago.

And then, one day in 1993, things began to change. The foundation that started and funded the scholarships from a $30 million fund began to think that automatic scholarships shouldn’t be so…well, automatic. And so, safeguards…er, conditions were put in place.

The first change came: The foundation passed a rule stating that students have to live in Philomath for eight years or more. Also, students from surrounding communities couldn’t bank on getting the money just for surviving high school with a passing grade. No, now they have to write an essay and fill out a loyalty oath…I mean, fill out a family-background questionnaire, and prove they believe the same things the foundation believes in.

Over the next few years, the foundation got upset with the high school’s dress code, a gay and lesbian club being created at the school, the shelving of a popular Indian mascot and a perceived anti-logging tilt in the classroom.

And then, in June of this year, the foundation wanted to have the school superintendent removed, along with the high school principal and school board. If they don’t go, said the foundation, Philomath High wouldn’t have a benefactor anymore.

You see, the man in charge of the fund’s purse strings thought that the students were going to harm the precious gravy train…I mean, wealth pot…I mean, foundation. In fact, he even said, "We are not going to use timber dollars to send the professors' kids, the physicians' kids, the teachers' kids to school, because they are the ones helping to shut down the timber industry, with environmental donations to Greenpeace. They support those people who are killing us."

The man running the foundation, who, by the way, works for the timber industry, even said he was going back to the original intent of the benefactors, his late aunt and uncle, the couple who wanted to change the lives of kids in a logging community with free college money (remember?). Strangely enough, neither the uncle or aunt could be reached for comment, so we have only the nephew’s ability to communicate with the dead to go on.

So, the students at the 650-student high school, some with the timber backgrounds like the initial benefactors knew about, await what comes next. It’s still early, but in a couple months, some students will have to seek answers to questions about life after high school: Will they get the scholarships? Did they say the right things in the questionnaire? What if they don’t get the money? Can they still go to college? Are they in secret competition with their classmates? Why did my mom and dad go to school on the cheap and I'm here sweating something that, in local lore, was a ticket out of a dying industry and into a greater world? Was I born at the wrong time? Just what does a tongue stud and Goth-black hair have to do with this? And just when did a generational promise become conditional?

Yes, children, it doesn’t sound fair, but as the nephew put it: "life is not fair."

The moral of the story: When you have money, you can do whatever you want to people.

Or sometimes you get screwed out of a promise.

Either way, it’s a hell of a thing for a kid to learn.

Story here and here.