Dubois County Chamber names 2026 Young Entrepreneur Scholarship recipients

The Dubois County Chamber of Commerce named four graduating seniors as its 2026 Young Entrepreneur Scholarship recipients, putting a spotlight on students whose college plans already point toward the county’s next wave of business leaders.

This year’s honorees were Jenna Berg of Forest Park Jr./Sr. High School, Kara Bonifer of Northeast Dubois High School, Aubree Gogel of Southridge High School and Johnson Dong of Jasper High School. The Chamber said the annual award goes to one senior from each Dubois County high school who has shown academic excellence, leadership and a clear commitment to a business-related college path.

The scholarship is designed to do more than hand out recognition. In 2025, the Chamber said each recipient received a one-time $500 scholarship to help pay for postsecondary business education, a modest but practical boost for students preparing to move from Dubois County classrooms to college campuses in Indiana and beyond. That kind of early support matters in a county with five public high schools serving about 2,574 students, where the pool of future entrepreneurs, managers and accountants is small enough that each standout senior is easy to notice and hard to replace.

Berg plans to attend Indiana State University in Terre Haute, where she will double major in accounting and finance and add a minor in insurance risk management. She has also been accepted into the Networks Professional Development Program, a sign that her path is already linked to professional development as well as coursework.

Bonifer plans to study marketing and communications at the University of Evansville, while Gogel will head to Purdue University in West Lafayette to major in marketing and minor in communications and finance. Dong plans to attend Stanford University in California to study business economics. Taken together, the four students represent a broad mix of business fields that feed directly into the local labor market, from accounting and finance to marketing, communications and economics.

Chamber Executive Director Angie Sanchez-Hostetter said the students reflect the talent, work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit that will shape Dubois County’s business community. The Chamber has said her role centers on community partnerships, outreach, business growth and quality of life, priorities that align with the scholarship program’s goal of keeping the county competitive by investing in homegrown talent.

The scholarship also fits into the Chamber’s larger mission of serving businesses of all sizes through leadership, legislative advocacy and member-to-member collaboration at the county, regional and state levels. That same approach shows up in the Chamber’s annual awards calendar, which includes honors such as Business of the Year, Young Professional of the Year and Business Person of the Year. In 2025, the Chamber held its State of the Chamber & Awards Ceremony on Nov. 12 at Venue 1408 in Huntingburg, with Dave Fischer of Fischer Farms as keynote speaker.