Each May the PlayForBurk Foundation awards a $1,000 scholarship to a graduating senior from Bartlesville High School.  However, this year is a little different.  This is the year Burk Hansen, the teen the foundation is named after and inspired by, would have been graduating from BHS.  Burk passed away in 2015 during his years at Madison Middle School in Bartlesville.

“Since this is the year Burk would have graduated, we wanted to do something special,” said foundation president, Clint Hansen.  “These are Burk’s friends.  This is Burk’s graduating class.  They are moving on to the next stage of life and we want to assist them in achieving their goals for higher education.”

The foundation board voted to award BHS senior, Kaleb Childress (pictured), with the annual $1,000 scholarship.  Additionally, the board unanimously approved a $250 scholarship to be given to each student that applied for the scholarship this year.

“We had a total of 11 BHS students apply for the scholarship.  Kaleb won the $1,000 and we decided to allocate an additional $2,500 to enable us to provide some money for each applicant,” remarked Hansen. 

Each applicant will receive a $250 cash scholarship to use toward books, fees, tuition, or other expenses related to their higher education pursuits.  The other 10 students receiving this scholarship are Brittany Banh, Shane Simpson, Allie Lee, Meghan Landers, Sadie Culver, Gabriel Ontiveros, Stone Yang, Haley Stevens, James Boudreaux, and Izzy Ames.

This annual scholarship allows the foundation to continue to further their mission statement of empowering youth through service, faith, personal development, and recreational opportunities.