The Fort Atkinson Community Foundation is pleased to present Ben and Ada Hake Agricultural Scholarships to Fort Atkinson High School graduates Kevin England, Marta Huss-Lederman, Abigail Kucken and Emma Lemke (Kucken, left, and Lemke, right, are pictured here). These awards, totaling $23,000, are for the 2020-21 academic year.
Two of the scholarships, a $6,000 award to Huss-Lederman and a $6,000 award to Lemke, are going to recent graduates of Fort Atkinson High School who intend to pursuing a degree in environmental science and agribusiness, respectively. The other two were awarded to upperclassmen. One scholarship, in the amount of $6,000, was awarded to Abigail Kucken, a 2019 Fort graduate pursuing a degree in agricultural education at UW-Platteville. The final scholarship, in the amount of $5,000, was awarded to Kevin England, a 2017 Fort graduate double majoring in microbiology and conservation biology at UW-Madison.
The Ben and Ada Hake Agricultural Scholarship Fund was established at the Fort Atkinson Community Foundation thanks to a gift made by Lloyd Hake in memory of his parents, Ben and Ada Hake. The Hakes owned and operated a very successful Registered Purebred Holstein Farm in the Fort Atkinson area for many years. Lloyd stayed on the farm, continuing that success and sharing the love of agriculture. It was his desire to encourage post-secondary education in agriculture and related fields, and to provide financial assistance to deserving Fort graduates.
These scholarships are one-year awards and are open to graduating seniors and former Fort Atkinson graduates who are pursuing post-secondary education in the fields of agriculture, environmental science, or natural resources.
For more information about the Ben and Ada Hake Agricultural Scholarship, contact Sue Hartwick, the Community Foundation’s executive director, at (920) 563-3210 (office), (920) 222-1191 (mobile) or via email at facf@fortfoundation.org.