HONOR ROLL HONOR OF DONORS ROLL OF DONORS
Honoring Classmate, Friend with a Scholarship and Long Walk The ties that bound four freshmen on the soccer pitch in the fall of 1976 are helping Rose-Hulman students 40 years later through a legacy scholarship fund. Ray Farmer formed an intramural soccer club with Class of 1980 classmates Blair Hughes (CHE), Bob Froetscher (ME), and Paul Curtin (CHE) that would be the origin of the sport being added to the athletic program in 1978. They also shared a brotherhood as members of the institute’s Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) fraternity. So when Farmer died unexpectedly in the spring of 2009, at the age of 51, the classmates came together to think of a way to honor their friend. Farmer bequeathed nearly $35,000 to Rose-Hulman. Hughes and Froetscher sought to use those funds to create a scholarship fund that would honor Farmer. With a minimum of $50,000 needed for this type of fund, additional donations were solicited from former soccer players and FIJI alumni during the Class of 1980’s 30-year reunion in 2010. They surpassed the goal, and the Ray Farmer Scholarship Fund was established. Hughes has been making donations to the scholarship fund nearly every year. In 2011, Farmer was recognized posthumously along with family members at the annual Homecoming soccer match between the junior varsity team and alumni players. Ray’s son, a certified soccer referee, was an official for the game.
The inaugural varsity soccer team in the fall of 1978 had goalie Ray Farmer (wearing black jersey in first row, second from right), Blair Hughes (parted blond hair in middle row, sixth from right), Bob Froetscher (middle row, third from left), and Paul Curtin (second row, second from right). Photo provided by Bob Froetscher.
The scholarship fund exceeded $100,000 in 2015 after Curtin pledged $1 for every mile completed in a 2,200-mile personal journey to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (celebrating his retirement). Other alumni, family members and friends added pledges—raising nearly $20,000. “The scholarship fund is a fitting tribute to Ray and what he meant to us and the soccer program,” says Hughes, pointing out that Farmer was inducted into Rose-Hulman’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. “I believe that the one area that alumni can help Rose-Hulman is by making donations to significantly increase its endowment and to increase the number of available scholarships. I view our Ray Farmer Scholarship effort as a small step in making the college affordable for deserving students.”
Current and past men’s soccer players gathered with members of Ray Farmer’s family to celebrate the establishment of the special scholarship in memory of the 1980 mechanical engineering alumnus. (Photo provided by Bob Froetscher)
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