Stillwater Area High School has more than 43 college scholarships available specifically for its students, totaling in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each one of these is looking for a specific type of student to support, but this year, two brand new scholarships look to help students interested in the outdoors.

The Greg Seftick scholarship is being given out in honor of former Stillwater student Greg Seftick. Seftick was an Alpine skier at Stillwater, who went on to be a doctor and an avid outdoorsman after high school. Tragically, he was killed in an avalanche in Grand Teton National Park in 2011. A scholarship committee will select the winner based on the following criteria.

“Applicants should have a similar love of nature. A one page essay discussing a wilderness experience or a passion for the mountains is required. Applicants must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above,” states the Community Scholarship Application.

The Jon Francis Scholarship is also a new scholarship this year, but it is coming from an older foundation. Jon Francis was a three sport athlete at Stillwater who competed in track, cross country running and nordic skiing. His parents David and Linda Francis created a foundation soon afterwards to help educate people about the dangers of the wilderness, as well as help students going into ministry and going to Jon’s alma mater, Augustana College.

The Jon Francis Foundation website states as its goals, “JFF acts as a resource to families who are distraught and overwhelmed while dealing with the disappearance of a loved one, a logistical and emotional resource to families of loved ones who are missing and aid in the transition from an official search to a private search if necessary, and JFF provides families with information they need to partner with law enforcement, links to available search and rescue resources, and knowledge about best practices to assist them in their search.”
Jon’s father David also wrote a memoir about searching for his son, entitled, “Bringing Jon Home.”

“He was doing ministry out in Ogden, Utah,” said Sandra Weaver. “He went out on a hike by himself in the mountains and disappeared. They searched for him for a few days, maybe a week, and then the search team said ‘Mrs. Francis, you need to give your son up to the mountain.’”

Though completely independent of each other, the similarities between Francis and Seftick eventually brought the families together to try to help Stillwater students.

“[Greg’s father Dan Seftick] connected with David and Linda Francis, who were Jon’s parents, and talked about the scholarship they had already developed for students going into ministry and also one at Augustana College, where Jon went to college, and then, in talking with the Sefticks, they decided that they would also like to honor a Stillwater student,” said Weaver.

The winners of both of these $1,000 scholarships will be announced on May 19 at the Community Scholarship awards dinner, and will help a Stillwater skier fulfill their goal of going to college.