MARKETING CLUB RAISES $8,000 FOR SCHOLARSHIP

Members of the marketing club at Southeast Missouri State University put their skills to practice during the past school year. They raised $8,000, which was donated to the Hayden Schuetts Marketing Club Scholarship Fund.

The seed for the scholarship was planted in 1966, when Schuetts and fellow department of marketing faculty member Dr. Bert Kellerman co-founded the university's marketing club. The club began raising funds and accumulated a small amount of money to begin a scholarship fund.

The scholarship was named for Schuetts when he retired from Southeast in the late 1980s. When Schuetts died in 1994, additional funds were donated to the fund by friends and family members.

Dr. Charles Wiles, professor of marketing at Southeast and faculty sponsor of the marketing club, said Schuetts had desired that the scholarship be presented only when enough interest was accumulated to fund a full semester of fees for a Southeast student. The fund earned this amount of interest for some time, but in recent years it had failed to do so, Wiles said.

After the passage of nearly 30 years, the fund contained only $15,000, the interest of which was no longer sufficient to pay a semester's fees, he said.

Recent recipients of the scholarship received the interest accumulated during one year -- a helpful sum of money, but not what Schuetts had envisioned.

During the summer of 1996, marketing club officers decided to raise funds for the scholarship. They solicited donations through the mail from marketing alumni. Nearly $4,000 was raised.

Major donations were received from marketing alumni and from Schuetts family members, including Betty Schuetts of Cape Girardeau, widow of Hayden; and Don Sievers of Jackson, Betty's brother.

Marketing club members raised an additional $750 during the spring semester to pay back funds that had been provided by the marketing department for the mailing, said Diane Bogle, club president.

The Southeast Missouri University Foundation kicked in $4,000, matching the amount raised by the club. As a result, the club presented a $1,000 scholarship to St. Louisan Alice Sydow, the club's incoming president.