University of Nebraska at Kearney

Blanche Berns often spoke to her children about the importance of an education. The lessons struck a chord, because her son Henry D. Berns and his wife Marilyn recently established a scholarship in Blanche’s memory to help future teachers attend the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Blanche taught at rural country schools in Webster County, Neb., after graduating from what was then Kearney State Teacher’s College. After seven years, she stopped teaching when she married Henry P. F. Berns. They were rural farmers in Webster County where they raised five children, but she never stopped taking an interest in education.

Nate Summerfield had a tough decision to make after his father died just before Nate was to enroll in college. In this video clip he talks about the weight of his decision.

In May Kristi Scott joined the ranks of graduates of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. In June she joined the ranks of the Peace Corps and headed to Tanzania. She credits the scholarship support received from University of Nebraska at Kearney donors with allowing her to accept the toughest job she’ll ever love.

A $10,000 gift from Justin Duffy’s friends and former co-workers at the Eaton Corporation is pushing a scholarship in his memory closer to its goal.

Duffy was killed on June 2, 2009, when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee while his Army unit provided security escort for military leadership in Baghdad. A fund in his memory was established last year at the University of Nebraska Foundation to help students attend the University of Nebraska at Kearney where Duffy graduated in 2000.

Duffy’s former Kearney, Neb., employer, Eaton, donated more than $10,000 in memory of its former employee. Duffy worked at the plant as a production supervisor for about five years.

Frank Morrison was devoted to his wife Maxine. She was an accomplished singer, teacher, businesswoman and politician who raised a family with a successful husband who was a teacher, a lawyer and served as governor of Nebraska from 1961-67.

The industrial technology department at the University of Nebraska at Kearney is the only program in Nebraska accredited by the National Association of Industrial Technology at the undergraduate level and is one of only 55 programs of its kind in the nation.

Sgt. Justin Duffy was killed June 2, 2009, in eastern Baghdad after a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee. He was 31. Family and fellow members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division have created a scholarship in his memory.

University of Nebraska at Kearney baseball athletes are getting a competitive advantage thanks to private gifts that have built an indoor practice facility at Memorial Field in Kearney where Loper baseball is headquartered. The new facility makes UNK the only school in the region with an indoor batting and hitting facility at the field of play.

Recent estate gifts are providing long-term support to the University of Nebraska. Virginia A. Blackman bequeathed $900,000 to the University of Nebraska Foundation for the Professor James S. and Virginia A. Blackman Memorial Fund, a permanent endowment she established years earlier in memory of her husband. The Amos and Doris Greenamyre estate created an endowed scholarship fund totaling about $1.5 million.

Watching rural Nebraska communities lose population prompted two University of Nebraska at Kearney faculty members to work with five high schools to identify strengths and weaknesses in rural Nebraska towns. Peter Longo and John Anderson, political science professors at UNK, are teaching students about citizenship through community and school improvement projects.