Cliff Buchan
News Editor

In its 32 years of awarding scholarships to students in the Forest Lake area, the Community Scholarship Foundation has sought to give deserving kids a break.

The success stories of providing educational help to residents of the school district are many. Past recipients have completed education programs for careers that include teaching, banking, farming and on and on.

There are hundreds of stories to tell, but none with more impact than that of the four children of Pastor Ed and Joanne Wheatley of Wyoming. Starting in 1995 all four Wheatley kids have been awarded CSF grants after graduating from Forest Lake High School.

Not only have the scholarships been awarded during their four-year undergraduate college work, they also have followed during graduate study years.

For the Wheatley family, the CSF success story is one still being written.

The two Wheatley sons ó Christopher and Timothy ó are both ordained Lutheran ministers in Minnesota today. Daughter Beth is attending medical school at the University of Minnesota Duluth and daughter Jenny has been accepted to attend the New York Academy of Art in New York City this fall.

ëA blessingí

For Joanne and Ed Wheatley, the CSF program has been both a ìblessingî and a way to see all kids encouraged and motivated.

ìItís a real blessing,î said Ed Wheatley who is a pastor at St. Johnís Lutheran Church in Stacy. He sees the scholarship program as a helping hand for deserving kids from families that can use the help.

But more than helping families, he says the scholarship program motivates youth to excel and become good citizens as youth and in their adult lives.

ìIt helps launch children to new adventures,î he says. ìItís an encouragement. It encourages kids to dream.î

With all four kids in college at some point, the financial assistance was ìabsolutely helpful,î Joanne Wheatley said.

ìItís also helped a lot that they feel supported by the community,î she added.

And the latter is the beauty of the program, Ed Wheatley says. As a scholarship program run by volunteers who rely on various forms of community donations, it is a true community program, he says.

ìIt (the CSF) pulls the community together and that is what I like about it,î Wheatley said.

4 march on

For the Wheatley children, the CSF program is one of the vehicles that has helped or is helping them march on in life.

Jenny Wheatley, 21, class of 2002, is finishing her undergraduate studies in visual arts and art history this spring at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. She is studying in Europe this spring and then in fall she is off to New York.

She was one of 14 students accepted from a pool of 7000 applicants to study visual arts at the two-year graduate program at the New York Academy of Art.

Beth Wheatley, 24, class of 2000, has spent the past two years at the UMD Medical School after completing a double major in biology and English this spring at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. This fall Wheatley will begin a 10-month clinical study program at a hospital/clinic in Paynesville before returning to medical school and an eventual three-year residency.

ìI have felt pretty blessed,î she said of the scholarship help she has received from her home community. ìI donít think people really know how much education costs.î

As a doctor, Wheatley says she would enjoy working as a family physician in a small town one day.

For Christopher and Timothy Wheatley, pastoral work was a career transition molded in part by the inspiration of their father.

Christopher Wheatley, 29, class of 1995, is now pastoring Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Twig and First Lutheran Church in Meadowlands.

Also a National Merit Scholarship recipient, Wheatley was ordained as a Lutheran minister after four years of seminary studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He earned his undergraduate degree at Concordia College in Moorhead.

The financial assistance was most helpful, he says, but the fact that the community was willing to help meant more.

ìEven more than that (the financial help), knowing that the community believes in you ó that you can do great things ó means a lot,î Christopher Wheatley said.

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Forest Lake Times
P.O. Box 218
880 SW 15 St.
Forest Lake, MN 55025
651-464-4601
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