Psi Iota Xi awards Jasper students memorial scholarships
Vanessa Padilla and Johnson Dong were chosen for Psi Iota Xi memorial scholarships, pointing Jasper High School talent toward Indiana State and the University of Chicago.
Psi Iota Xi’s Zeta Mu Chapter used Jasper High School Awards Day to send two students toward sharply different college paths, awarding Vanessa Padilla a $2,000 Suzanne Jane Kress Memorial Scholarship and naming Johnson Dong an honorable mention recipient worth $1,000. The awards underscored how a Jasper civic group has kept academic support, arts funding and youth enrichment tied together for generations.
Scholarship Chairman Pam Jarboe presented the award to Padilla, who plans to study political science at Indiana State University. Dong plans to attend the University of Chicago to study business and economics. Together, their plans point to two fields that shape the region’s future in different ways, public leadership and private enterprise, while keeping both students rooted in Jasper High School’s academic pipeline.
The memorial scholarship carries a story that reaches back to June 1963, when Suzanne Kress and Pat Ebenkamp were traveling from Jasper to Muncie for a Psi Iota Xi National Convention and were involved in an automobile accident. Kress was killed and Ebenkamp was severely injured. The 2024 Helicon history booklet says Kress was one of Zeta Mu’s charter members, giving the scholarship a name tied not only to remembrance but also to the chapter’s earliest service in Jasper.
Zeta Mu became Psi Iota Xi’s 99th chapter in October 1959 and marked its 65th anniversary in October 2024. Psi Iota Xi itself was founded in Muncie on Sept. 19, 1897, and now operates across five states as a philanthropic women’s sorority focused on music, art, literature, speech and hearing projects. Its recent giving summary reported $778,095.44 in total philanthropic support across chapters, state associations, endowments and national donations.
In Jasper, that broader mission shows up in more than scholarships. Zeta Mu runs a free summer language and literacy camp for Dubois County children, sponsors the Dolly Parton Imagination Library at the gold level, and supports scholarships for speech and hearing-related study. The chapter also presented two $500 Senior Art Awards in March at Jasper Arts’ Youth Art Month reception, and its local fundraisers include the Art and Wine Fair during Strassenfest and a fall nut-and-candy sale.
Psi Iota Xi’s service network has also stretched into speech and hearing work since 1938, and the organization says it is nearing its $100,000 commitment to the Psi Iota Xi-Hear Indiana Scholarship Endowment. For Jasper, that means the memorial scholarship is part of a larger, long-running investment in students who may leave for college but could eventually bring their skills back home.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
