Meet the Finalists for the 2024 Wabash County Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship

For the 27th year, the Community Foundation is administering the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship for Wabash County. The scholarship pays full tuition for one student for four years at any Indiana college or university.

The Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program (LECS) is designed to help raise the level of educational attainment in Indiana. This program aims to encourage many of Indiana’s most talented students to attend one of the state’s higher education institutions and, ultimately, pursue careers in Indiana. The recipient is someone who is a high achieving student academically, an active participant in school and community activities, and who has financial need.

Through an application process, the Community Foundation has identified four LECS finalists. They are, in alphabetical order, Carrie Collins (Southwood), Evan Martynowicz (Manchester), Paloma Shull (Wabash) and Brooke Wagner (Wabash).

	Carrie Collins plans to attend Indiana Wesleyan University to major in education and minor in exercise science. She is passionate about physical education and hopes to have a positive impact on youth, encouraging them to live healthy lifestyles. She is an outstanding student and athlete at school and an avid volunteer at her church. She coaches t-ball and coaches pitch, leads the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Southwood, and has been in 4-H for four years. ​
	Evan Martynowicz wants to attend Notre Dame or Butler University after high school to study psychology and statistics, a field he learned to love from sports statistics, but which also has many applications in helping to solve social problems in communities. Evan has also created many sports statistics as a member of Manchester High School baseball and soccer teams. He volunteers with his youth group to supply food to the local pantry, volunteers to help children with baseball skills, and helped create cloth diapers for families in Haiti while attending a youth conference in Colorado.
	Paloma Shull will attend Indiana University next fall to study environmental sciences and ethnobotany. She describes herself as a curious person who loves learning about the natural world and about society. Outside of school, she has attended White Pine wilderness Academy and the Kaman Naturalist Training Program. She is captain of the Wabash High School Wrestling Team, and is also interested in music, languages, and art.
	Brooke Wagner plans to attend Purdue University to study engineering. Though she had early ambitions of being an astronaut, Brooke’s interests have shifted to environmental and ecological engineering. She wants to use her degree to bridge the gap between humanity and the natural world. She’s had the distinction of being named “Super Nerd,” Best Writer, Scholar Athlete, and member of National Honor Society. Her greatest accomplishment are her Academic Letter and her Scholar Athlete Letter.