The Harold and Donna Schrock Nursing Scholarship
Congratulations on being chosen as a Harold and Donna Schrock Nursing Scholarship recipient! Here is a little information about the couple who made your scholarship possible:
Both Harold and Donna Schrock grew up in Goshen. Harold was a student at Goshen High School during the Great Depression. When financial woes closed down the school newspaper in 1933, Harold took the initiative to sell ads and helped to publish an alternative newspaper. He served as business manager of the yearbook and managed to save that publication, too. After this youthful success in business leadership, he went on to a business major at Goshen College, graduating in 1937. He also attended Notre Dame University, even taking classes simultaneously at Goshen and Notre Dame during one year.
Donna attended Manchester College (North Manchester, Indiana). From the ninth grade on, Harold had worked summers in his father’s company, Star Tank and Boat. After graduation, he joined his father in the management of the company, which produced watering tanks for livestock and steel fishing boats. Having begun his career in lean years, Harold once observed that “Tough times bring out the good manager.” His gift for business was clear as he led the company and it became Starcraft, the largest manufacturer of boats in the U.S. Harold married Thelma Hostetler, whom he met at Goshen College, and they had five children. Donna married Richard Kercher and raised three children. She worked as director of the Goshen office of the YWCA.
Harold and Donna lived very full lives. They experienced the joys of work, world travel and raising families and suffered the deaths of loved ones, including spouses. They married in 1998 – Harold’s third marriage and Donna’s second. In retirement they spend part of each year in Naples, Florida and part in their home in Syracuse, Indiana, overlooking the lake.
Harold is a philanthropist who has helped make Goshen the beloved home and jewel of a town that it is today. He helped to found the first Chamber of Commerce, served on numerous local boards and has contributed generously to the hospital, the Parks Department and Goshen College, among many others. He is Goshen College’s most long term and consistent major donor. He has been a GC supporter since his first gift of $25 in 1954. GC’s Schrock Plaza and Schrock Science Annex bear his name, and he has been the quiet support behind many other GC buildings and projects.
In 2007, Donna joined Harold in making a gift to celebrate the 70th anniversary of his graduation from Goshen College. The Schrocks asked that part of the gift be used to establish a scholarship for Goshen’s newly established master’s program in nursing. As a recipient of the Harold and Donna Schrock Nursing Scholarship, you are a beneficiary of these generous and forward-looking friends of Goshen College students.