Brookfield, Wis—The Funeral Service Foundation (FSF) has awarded an outstanding mortuary science school student, Adam Knebler , a $2,500 Joseph E. Hagan Memorial Scholarship.
Fifteen students applied for consideration for the 2012 Joseph E. Hagan Memorial scholarship program. Students were asked to define the quality or attribute of a funeral director that is most important to successfully meeting a family’s needs.
“The commitment of all the scholarship applicants to their chosen profession was very heartening,” said FSF Grants Committee Chair Ed Mazur. “This student saw not only the quality of a funeral director but also the relationship the funeral director could build with the family he was serving. We are delighted to be able to continue to support a promising mortuary science student with a scholarship, and look forward to his life-long contribution to our profession.”
Scholarship recipient Adam Knebler, a former Marine Corps Liaison at Dover Port Mortuary, is pursuing an Associate’s of Applied Science in Mortuary Science from the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service in Dallas, Texas. Knebler believes” . . . in order to meet the needs of the families that I will be serving, the family needs to know that you can be trusted to uphold their loved one with the highest dignity, honor and respect. And the best way to meet this need is to have the quality of integrity.”
The Joseph E. Hagan Memorial Scholarship, established in 2000 by the FSF Board of Trustees, honors funeral service’s finest students through one or more scholarships of $1,000. Students must be enrolled in a program accredited by the American Board of Funeral Service Education and submit an essay to be considered for the award.
Applications for the 2013 Joseph E. Hagan Scholarship will be available in January, 2013, at www.funeralservicefoundation.
About Joseph E. Hagan
With a funeral service career spanning 52 years at Joseph Gawler’s Sons Funeral Home in Washington, D.C., Joseph E. Hagan was known for arranging and directing the funerals of some of the highest government officials in the country, including presidents, Supreme Court justices, senators and other diplomats. Assisting in the funerals of notables such as President Dwight Eisenhower, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, he was most noted for directing the highly profiled funeral of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
About the Funeral Service Foundation
The Funeral Service Foundation, through grants, scholarships and research initiatives, supports career and professional development in funeral service, the advancement of funeral service and allied professions, public awareness and education, and the improvement of children’s lives. For information, visit www.funeralservicefoundation.
