Oregon Wheat Scholarship Program
Thank you to all applicants who submitted an application for the 2024 scholarship year. We will reopen for 2025 applications on November 1, 2024, with applications due by February 1, 2025.
The 2024 Oregon Wheat Foundation scholarship winners are:
- Kale Bingaman, Imbler High School
- Jake Bingaman, Imbler High School
- Grace Cloughton, Arlington High School
- Courtney Coelsh, Sherman County High School
- Morgan Cutsforth, Heppner High School
- Brooke Glaser, Central Linn High School
- Kailee Macy, Culver High School
- Luke McGourty, Vale High School
- Addison Perkins, Weston McEwen High School
- Cameron Proudfood, Heppner High School
- Ryann Rosselle, Hood River High School
- Allison Spratling, Pendleton High School
For 2024, the Foundation Board increased the amount of each scholarship award to $2,000. Annually, up to twelve scholarships are awarded to graduating high school seniors who are the child of a grower member of the Oregon Wheat Growers League, or whose parents are employed by a grower member of the Oregon Wheat Growers League. The scholarship is also open to students who have worked summers for grower members. Scholarship recipients are selected based on school and community involvement, scholastic performance, and an essay on the wheat industry.
A scholarship may be awarded in one of the following wheat producing counties or regions: Central Oregon, Gilliam, Klamath, Malheur, Morrow, Sherman, Umatilla, Union/Baker, Wallowa, Wasco, North Willamette Valley and South Willamette Valley. Selected recipients will be awarded the $2,000 after the first term transcripts are submitted to the OWF Office. Student must successfully complete at least 12 credit hours at a University and/or two-year Community College with the intent of completing a degree or successfully pass the first-year requirements for an accredited vocational or technical program.
Thank you to our many sponsors that contribute to the success of the annual auction to raise funds for the scholarship programs. Providing scholarships to Oregon high school seniors allows Oregon Wheat to help grow agriculture.
Past Essays
Read some of the past scholarship essays. We will post one each month, beginning in August. Read below for the most recent essay posts.
2023 Scholarship Essay: Rylee Demianew
It’s May 8th 1865, along the banks of Stewart Creek sits a small farmhouse in territory that had just recently been designated as Umatilla County. Elizabeth Hemphill sits on her porch looking over Stewart Creek, and opens her leather bound journal, “We had a good farm on the creek and raised grain principally. We had…
2023 Scholarship Essay: McConly Underhill Wilkinson
Small town wheat farmers face major challenges. With rising costs and dwindling yields there are hundreds of family farms struggling just to make the checkbook balance. With food shortages becoming a greater threat every passing year, securing the livelihoods of the people who produce our food is a must. Farmers in America will face challenges…
2023 Scholarship Essay: Maclane Melville “No-Till Farming in the Wheat Industry”
There are and will always be challenges when growing wheat for the American farmer. Inthis essay, I would like to address two major challenges I have personally witnessed on ournortheast Oregon farm: erosion and water retention. One solution we use to address theseproblems is the use of no-till farming. No-till farming has minimal soil disturbance,…
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