Hastings College Launches Campaign for Scholarships, Career Development

By: Megan Johnson - Email

Updated: Fri 7:35 AM, Oct 05, 2012

Bobby Gottsch Difference
Makers Campaign

- Difference Makers Endowed Scholarships
- Bobby Gottsch Center for Leadership
and Career Development
- Endowed Fund for Campus Maintenance
- Fund for Athletics
- Rodeo Fund

Don Jackson
402.461.7791
www.hastings.edu/gottsch

Bobby Gottsch had been on the Hastings College board of trustees for 16 years when he passed away suddenly last fall.

Not long after, other HC officials began planning a way to honor Gottsch's legacy, and on Thursday they publicly launched the Bobby Gottsch Difference Makers Campaign.

"What we're able to announce today is that we will end the silent phase of this campaign with a $9 million commitment from friends and family," says Hastings College President Dennis Trotter.

Don Jackson, the Vice President for College Advancement and the campaign's co-chair, says they have a $12 million goal and have five areas they want to fund: endowed scholarships, the Bobby Gottsch Center for Leadership and Career Development, an endowed fund for campus maintenance, a fund for athletics, and a fund for the school's rodeo program.

"The campaign is focused on young people from rural areas - farms, ranches, small communities," says Jackson.

Jackson says one way to help those rural-based students is through endowed scholarships.

One sophomore from Sutton says without that help college might have been just a dream for her.

"To put it simply - Hastings College education would not have been a possibility without scholarships," says Jessica Osterhaus.

Campaign officials say they want to give students the opportunity to succeed at college too, so they'll continue to support efforts started by Gottsch like the college's rodeo program which is the only rodeo program at a liberal arts college on the Great Plains.

"We've seen first hand what a college education at Hastings College with the right coaching and mentoring can do to help young people succeed at careers well beyond Hastings College," says Jackson.

"As we got into the specifics of how it was going to help farm kids and ranch kids with scholarships and the Center for Leadership and Career Development and a fund to help campus maintenance - I knew that it sounded just like Bobby," says Gottsch's wife Cindy.

For more information about the campaign, contact Don Jackson at 402.461.7791, or click on the links in the side box.

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