http://www.thebattlecreekshopper.com BATTLE CREEK SHOPPER NEWS Thursday, August 15, 2024 33
SHELLY KEHRLE-SULSER
Executive Editor
When Harper Creek High School
senior Quinn Nickerson received
an award in May to help further
her education, it was the first time
that the new Waltman-Howard
Scholarship was presented.
Created by 2015 Harper Creek
graduate, Kevin Howard to honor
his former, Beadle Lake Elementary
School teacher, Sharon Waltman,
the scholarship is intended to help
any awardee attend either a two-year
community college, trade school or
four-year university.
“Quinn is a very delightful young
lady,” said Waltman, who plans to
retire after completing her 30th year
this school year. “She’s done a lot
for the community. The scholarship
in general isn’t just for four-year
institutions. It’s for trade school. It’s
for anything that furthers learning,
and that was really important to both
of us, that it be that way, and not just
academic.”
Nickerson was one of 21 Harper
Creek students collecting scholar-
ships that night in The Milton ball-
room where Waltman was able to
present the inaugural award that
bears her name.
Howard, who now works as a pro-
gram officer on the economic mobil-
ity and opportunity team at the Gates
Foundation in Washington DC, said
his work focuses on poverty which
gave him the idea to do something
for his hometown.
“We’re focused on poverty and
economic mobility for adults under
200-percent of the federal poverty
line across the US,” he explained.
“I grew up in Battle Creek, so I see
a lot of my community in the work
that I’m doing and I work with our
portfolio that’s focused on local gov-
ernments, too.”
In contemplating what he could do
for current Battle Creek students, he
thought of his fourth grade teacher.
“I think fourth grade was a real
pivot point in my educational jour-
ney, I think in large part to do with
Mrs. Waltman,” he said, “and that
was, I think, the first year in school
where I actually enjoyed school and
really took to it. And I think she was
a big part of that.”
Howard enjoyed being a part of her
Kevin Howard said he gave the double thumbs up a lot when he was in
elementary school and here, his teacher, joins him for a photo during a field trip
to Mackinaw Island. They recreated the pose at Harper Creek Homecoming
during his 2014-2015 school year. To the surprise of each of them, they each
had the exact same gift for one another at his graduation open house: This
collage in the same frame style. (photo supplied)Beadle Lake Elementary School
teacher Sharon Waltman presented
the first Waltman-Howard Scholarship
to Quinn Nickerson last May. The
scholarship was created by 2015
Harper Creek High School graduate
Kevin Howard (who was unable to
attend the scholarship banquet) in
Waltman’s honor. (Photo supplied)Kevin Howard, left, said his fourth
grade Beadle Lake Elementary
School teacher Sharon Waltman
helped corral his energy and steer
him toward focusing more on his
studies during that pivotal year in his
life. Today, there is a scholarship in
their names held at the Battle Creek
Community Foundation as his thanks
to her for the support over the years.
(Photo supplied)Former student honors Harper Creek teacher with new scholarship
classroom.
“I was a pretty energetic kid before,
and she was the first teacher to match
that energy and kind of be able to
corral that into something productive
and focus on school,” he said, “and
make it helpful and not just distract-ing. And I remember every time there
was a picture, I would make this face
with my thumbs up for some reason.
That was just a thing I was doing at
the time, and I think it captures a lot
of my energy and just like, general
affect.”In fact, it might all come down to
one field trip to Mackinaw Island
that made the difference.
“It was a very, like, formative field
trip,” he said, “and she was just a
wonderful teacher that left a big
impression on me. And so when I
came to the Gates Foundation, we
have a pretty generous employee
philanthropic match. So I thought
this could be an awesome opportu-
nity to set up a scholarship, and I
was thinking about what that scholar-
ship could look like, and thought that
I would honor my favorite teacher
throughout my education, and
thought it could be a fun thing that
we did together.”
Waltman explained that the field
trip was designed to help teach the
students about Michigan history.
“We were able to go up to
Mackinac Island overnight, and
Ken and I had some fun there,” said
Waltman. “We posed and did this
funny little picture. Then fast for-
ward to homecoming week, he had
called and said, ‘I really want you to
come to homecoming. I mentioned
you one of my influential teachers’,
and I said I’d be glad to come. So we
recreated that picture.”
Later, as Howard graduated Harper
Creek, he invited her to his open
house.
“We get invited to lots of those,”
said Waltman. “And I walk up and
I’ve got his little gift and his card
and everything, and he hands me a
bag. He goes, ‘Well, I have a gift for
you.’ And I told Kevin, ‘that’s not
how this works. Usually people give
you gifts, and he’s like, ‘Well, open
it.’ And I opened it, and he had taken
those two pictures and kind of made
them into one.”
Waltman was floored, she said,
because it was the exact same gift
she had for him, identical down to
the fame she chose.
“It was the same idea, and I’m
like,” she said, “’this is crazy.’”
Fast forward again to 2022 when
Waltman and her family experienced
and unthinkable tragedy, the loss of
their oldest son, Alec, at age 28.
“And Kevin reached out to me, and
I had actually quite a few studentsSee HARPER CREEK on 34