WALLA WALLA – Besides helping him earn the four-year John William McGillis scholarship, an essay about the space shuttle also foreshadowed the future for 1982 Touchet High School graduate Greg Garbe.
The scholarship, started by longtime Walla Walla resident Jack McGillis, aided in funding Garbe’s undergraduate studies at the University of Washington. He now works in Alabama as a NASA aerospace technologist.
“I really didn’t have aspirations of working at NASA,” Garbe said. “I was too young and naive to know what I wanted to do.”
Garbe is just one of the many success stories among McGillis’ scholarship recipients.
McGillis started the scholarship in honor of his only child, John W. McGillis Jr., who died at age 20 in a 1977 car wreck, the summer after his sophomore year at Whitman College.
On the afternoon of his son’s death, Jack McGillis stood in his kitchen with Dr. John Bond, a close family friend.
“I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to keep Johnny alive. How are we going to do it?”’ Bond said. Remembering the young man’s frustrations by the lack of talent-based scholarships available to students, the two men decided to start a scholarship fund in John’s name.
“My son John was a brilliant scholar. He was four-point all through school,” McGillis said. “All of the scholarships were based on need, and he was ineligible for any scholarship because of me.”
At the time, McGillis owned a successful seed company and Bond practiced ophthalmology. Now, both are retired and still reside in Walla Walla.
The John W. McGillis Jr. Scholarship would reward local, well-rounded academic achievers, regardless of their family finances.
“(John) had thought he wanted to be a college professor,” McGillis said. “He would end up educating more students this way than he ever dreamed.”
Seniors at local high schools are invited to apply for the scholarship each spring. A committee reviews the applications and selects one student to receive the four-year scholarship.
The amount of the scholarship has changed over the years, but current recipients receive $2,500 for each of their four years of undergraduate schooling.
The committee also chooses several students to receive one-time scholarships. This year, four students received $1,000 scholarships for their freshman year of college.
“There are so many kids out there that deserve recognition,” McGillis said. “We turned a tragedy into a positive by starting this scholarship.”
And the recipients haven’t forgotten his generosity. For McGillis’ 80th birthday, his wife, Mary Ann Coffey, tracked down each past scholarship recipient and invited them to a surprise birthday celebration. The recipients are now spread throughout the country – and the world – but 26 of the 27 responded with a personal letter to McGillis and nine were able to attend. Garbe flew in from Alabama to attend the party.
“He’s kind of a father figure and a really good role model,” Garbe said. “I look back now and really am so grateful.”
Coffey assembled an album including the letters, cards and photos from each past scholarship recipient.
“While they’re not his children, I guarantee you he brags about them as if they were,” Coffey said. “He knows each one of them.”
So far, past scholarship recipients have given him plenty to brag about. They have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers and a host of other professionals. And current recipients are showing promise of following in their footsteps.
Sandy Flores, a 2004 Wa-Hi graduate and junior at Whitman College, plans to attend law school and become a corporate lawyer.
“I’ve been so fortunate to meet them,” Flores said. “It’s really nice to know you have another person who’s there rooting behind you. You really get that impression.”
This year’s recipient, Nicole Sawatzki, a 2006 Walla Walla High graduate, started her college career recently at Washington State University. She hopes to become a doctor and said the scholarship will help her afford to study abroad in Spain.
“We’ve had students from every high school in the Valley, so no one school has a lock on the scholarship,” McGillis said.
The scholarship fund is largely supported by McGillis and Bond, although they welcome outside contributors, including former recipients. So far, 29 four-year scholarships have been awarded in addition to various one-time scholarships.
Bond said he receives donation requests from the University of Michigan, where he attended medical school, but prefers supporting the McGillis scholarship because he can see it make a difference.
“The University of Michigan’s budget is $4 billion a year, so my money doesn’t make much of an impact, but this is something local,” Bond said.
To be sure that the scholarship would continue even once he is gone, McGillis turned management of the fund over to the Blue Mountain Community Foundation, but McGillis, Coffey and Bond remain on the committee that reviews the applications and selects the winners.
“Jack hosts at his expense a dinner for each of the scholars … Every year they come back, so we get to watch them grow. It’s just remarkable to watch them mature,” Coffey said. “It’s been fun for me to join in this sort of in the middle and see these wonderful young people who are going to be our leaders in the future.”
Coffey became involved in the scholarship in 1992, when she married McGillis. Lois McGillis, the mother of his son, died in 1989.
“It was great to know that every year that $2,000 was going to be there,” said Mark VanDonge, a 2001 Wa-Hi graduate. “It took a lot of the pressure off.”
After earning his degree in mathematical economics at Pomona College, VanDonge eventually returned to Walla Walla. He obtained his Realtor’s license and now works for Windermere Real Estate.
“I was really appreciative to Jack,” VanDonge said. “I thought it was really neat how they turned a tragedy into something that really helps and supports students at a time in their lives when they don’t have much.”
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