OLEAN - August Brainard-Brunelle of Olean High School received the first-ever Russell F. Greenawalt and Elizabeth Page Scholarship to attend Cornell University.
Established as part of the Olean City School District Scholarship Fund, now managed by the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation, through the estate of Russell F. Greenawalt, this scholarship is intended to provide a last-dollar award to cover the balance of tuition and on-campus room and board for one Olean High School graduate each year after other scholarships and aid are applied. The scholarship will not be awarded to new applicants until the current recipient completes his/her four-year education at Cornell.
Brunelle, the OHS class of 2018 valedictorian, will attend Cornell to study business.
The scholarship is named in honor of Greenawalt and his wife, Elizabeth Page, who both attended Olean city schools. Greenawalt's father, William C. Greenawalt, was superintendent of the Olean City School District for 20 years.
Greenawalt graduated from Olean High School in 1930 and Cornell University in 1934, where he studied mechanical engineering and was commissioned in the U.S. Army Reserve Corps. He spent five years on duty during World War II, rising to serve as commanding officer at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center in Illinois.
After the war Greenawalt returned to Rochester and worked first as a food processing plants engineer before becoming assistant director of engineering services for the NY State Mental Hygiene Department.
Another scholarship of the same name and criteria exists at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where Greenawalt's wife graduated, for Olean graduates attending that college.
Greenawalt chose to establish the scholarship through his estate with the "hope that the scholarship recipients' lives will be enriched by attending Cornell University and that [the scholarship] will foster in the recipients a generous and responsible spirit."
The Greenawalt Scholarship will be unavailable to students while Brunelle is in receipt of the award but will again be available through the Foundation after that period.
Donations can be made to the Russell F. Greenawalt and Elizabeth Page Scholarship Fund at 301 N. Union St., Suite 203 or online at cattfoundation.org.