Five Northern Illinois University students with strong character, grand ambitions and intellectual curiosity are now recipients of the first-ever Forward, Together Forward scholarships.

Deanna Bach, Jacqueline Do, Scott Hudek, Justin Kuryliw and Grace Weidner, who share those qualities with the five students lost Feb. 14, 2008, each receive a one-time scholarship of $4,000.

“This is NIU’s most prestigious honor for students,” Provost Raymond Alden said. “These five are all highly involved, goal-oriented and motivated. They’re devoted to making NIU, and the world around them, a better place. They will carry on the memories and the good works of the five students to whom this scholarship is dedicated.”

“During Feb. 14, 2008, we all saw how strong the entire NIU family is. Reading through the applications just strengthened that notion,” added Dana Gautcher, NIU’s scholarship coordinator and financial retention advocate. “We truly have a tremendous number of students who are working hard and doing really wonderful things to better themselves and the lives of others.”

Seventy-one students applied for the scholarships. A committee of nine faculty and two students selected 15 of those as finalists, who then sat for interviews.

The applications asked for not only grade-point averages but awards, honors, achievements, community service, extracurricular involvement, employment experience, hobbies and special interests.

Hopefuls had to write short essays on what it means to be an NIU Huskie, their thoughts on character, their dreams and how they will honor the memories of Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant, Ryanne Mace and Daniel Parmenter.

The unique set of requirements grew from an unsolicited outpouring of funding from friends of the university who wanted to memorialize the deceased students through a scholarship fund.

“The committee that came together decided the best way to do that was to recognize the attributes of these students,” Alden said.

“These scholarships are not based on simply academic records – although that’s a component – but on the character and the values these students represented,” he added. “The students we lost were hard-working individuals. They all were engaged in the university community in some way. They were all extremely well-liked. They were five students who represented the kinds of characteristics we treasure.”

Mallory M. Simpson, president of the NIU Foundation, said 1,639 donors have come together to build the $631,390 scholarship fund.

The current grand total of all Feb. 14-related gifts is $846,363 from 2,237 donors: Three hundred and twenty-three donors have contributed $95,517 to three individually named funds established in the colleges; 275 donors have given or pledged around $120,000 for the memorial garden project.

Grace Weidner, who was in the Cole Hall auditorium when the shooting took place, is grateful for the scholarship recognition and the process itself.

“It was more difficult than I thought it would be. The essays were the hardest part,” Weidner said. “When it came to actually typing things out, I found I would say things that I really hadn’t shared with anyone before. A lot of what I’ve wanted to say for a really long time came out in my writing.”