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By Melinda Munson for KHNS | March 29, 2024
A couple that served Skagway in their golden years is continuing to give to the community through a scholarship program.
A new scholarship is available to graduating seniors, and those who already graduated from Skagway School.
The excitement was palpable as John O’Daniel, Hather fund advisor, described the future of the Hather Family Scholarship Fund, in honor of Betty and Don Hather. Slated at $10,000 in its first year, O’Daniel said he expected the available funds to grow.
“From here on out, it’s going to be well over $20,000 that we’re going to be able to hand out to graduating seniors of Skagway,” he said. “And what we want to do too, because all it stipulates is it’s kids that graduated from Skagway, so what we’d like to do is also open it up for kids that are still in college. You know, because a lot of kids in Skagway get scholarships for first and second year. But the third and fourth is when they really need some help. So we’re gonna open it up for them to reapply.”
The scholarship also allows Skagway graduates to apply for the funding later in life. O’Daniel gave the example of an adult who decided to pursue nursing school.
“Yeah, we want to open it up to as many people and help as many people as we can because that’s what Don and Betty would really want to do,” he added.
Don and Betty “retired” to Skagway in the mid 90s. O’Daniel said that while the couple never had children of their own, they “had thousands of kids that they raised.”
Don served on the school board, volunteered at athletic events and with the help of O’Daniel’s family, started the Elks Burger Feed. O’Daniel estimated that the burger fundraiser has earned the school more than $1 million over the past 30 years.
The Hather home was a social hotspot. Five television sets welcomed football enthusiasts on Saturday, with the largest tv reserved for Nebraska. Fish feeds and card games were a regular occurance.
Jeff Kasler (Kastler), who served as Skagway School athletic director, remembers the warmth and welcome of the Hather house.
“…I can’t tell you how many mornings during my activities director period that I had to go see them for one reason or another,” he said. “And I would pull up to their house. And, you know, Betty would answer the door. And that house always smelled of bacon, and sausage and eggs. I mean, it’s just, that’s what the house smelled like. And Betty, you know, I couldn’t get out of the house – even though Don had already had breakfast and so forth. She would insist, you know, that I sit down and Betty would make me a full on breakfast buffet. And we would just sit there and drink coffee and whatever business you know, I had to talk with Don about. You know, Betty, she was just gold.”
After her husband’s death, Betty gifted Kasler (Kastler) one of Don’s Nebraska Cornhuskers jackets. Kastler said he wears it on special occasions, and it still smells of bacon and eggs.
The Hather scholarship is administered through the Juneau Community Foundation. Applications are due April 22. A committee of five people who knew and loved the Hathers will decide who receives the scholarships.
O’Daniel hopes that those who get the scholarships have some sense of who the Hathers were.
“…the big thing is that, even though if they didn’t know Betty, or if they didn’t know Don, at least they have a couple of people that cared enough about them to make sure that they were able to go to college, you know,” he said. “This was Don and Betty’s dream.”
O’Daniel said scholarship recipients don’t need to cheer for Nebraska, but a little enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt.
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