West Union seniors win $5,000 Harper memorial scholarships
West Union High School seniors Nina McCann and Brylee Mills each received $5,000 Harper memorial scholarships as Keith Harper's family continued a 2021 tribute to Susan Harper.
Nina McCann and Brylee Mills will leave West Union High School with more than diplomas. Each senior received a $5,000 Susan Hattan Harper Memorial Scholarship, a hometown award that ties their next steps to one of the school district’s strongest education legacies.
McCann, the top-ranked student in the West Union High School Class of 2026, plans to study chemistry and move toward a career in the medical field. Her high school record stretched well beyond the classroom, with work in academics, athletics, music and service that made her one of the most recognizable students in Adams County this spring.
Mills plans to major in business and marketing with a healthcare focus. He has been a multi-sport varsity athlete, a team captain, an entrepreneur and an active volunteer with West Union Youth Athletics, a mix that matched the scholarship’s emphasis on leadership, service and commitment to the community.
The awards also carried a family history that West Union families know well. Keith Harper and his family created the scholarship in 2021 in memory of Susan Hattan Harper, a West Union High School Class of 1970 graduate who taught at West Union Elementary School for more than 30 years. Keith Harper taught in West Union schools for 30 years as a junior high school teacher, making the scholarship as much a reflection of local education as a recognition of individual achievement.
That connection has kept the award visible year after year. Previous recipients have included Makenna Armstrong in 2023, Makinlee Stevenson and Brandt Seaman in 2024, and Nathan Bayless and Ashlah Staten in 2025. The scholarship has repeatedly been presented to West Union High School graduates who plan to continue their education, especially at a four-year college or university.
For McCann and Mills, the $5,000 awards marked both a financial boost and a public nod to the qualities the Harper family set out to honor. In McCann’s case, that meant strong academics paired with music, athletics and service. For Mills, it meant a student who has combined business ambition with leadership on the field and volunteer work off it.
The result was a ceremony that said something larger about West Union High School itself: the students drawing the most notice in Adams County are not defined by one activity or one test score, but by the range of ways they contribute before they ever leave for college.
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