BRISTOL — The board of the Blakeley-Mills Newfound Regional Scholarship Foundation is looking to engage more alumni in both giving and social activities.
The foundation achieved the designation as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization last April, and in June 2017, it awarded the first four scholarships: two for $750 and two for $500. Currently, the fund has $20,000, and founders Paul Berton and Linda Drake Normandin, both members of the Class of 1972, say they want to get it to a level where scholarships can be awarded from the interest alone.
To help get there, they have announced a “Pledge Your Age” campaign for Newfound alumni, whether they graduated from Bristol High School, Newfound Memorial High School, or Newfound Regional High School.
The theory is that recent graduates who are bearing college costs would still be able to pledge $18, $19, or $20, while those who have reached retirement age can spare the $65 or $70 that reflects their age. Donations of that size will help supplement the more hefty contributions they hope to get from businesses and individuals who are able to give more.
The scholarship is named after retired teachers and coaches Alan Blakeley and Earl Mills. Blakeley came to the Newfound Area School District straight out of college in 1964 and remained for 37 years. Mills started out as a baseball and soccer coach but after re-instituting the cross-country program in 1976, he went on to coach more than 80 Newfound teams in eight sports.
While both men are known for their work in athletics, the scholarship is not just for athletes. Normandin stressed that anyone — even someone who is no longer attending Newfound schools — is eligible. The applicant need not be attending college, either. Those looking to go into the trades or other specialized training at technical schools, or even just seeking a certificate, also may qualify.
Berton said the idea for the scholarship came to him during the financial crisis, when people learned that the wealth everyone had been celebrating actually turned out to be a mountain of debt.
“It made me sit back and look,” he said. “Things aren’t always as they appear.”
Berton said he did an analysis of what a college education cost in 1971 and what it costs today. The median family income in Bristol in 1971 was $12,000, and the average cost for college was $2,500, or about 21 percent of that income. Today, the medium income here is $30,000 — the same amount as the average cost of college.
The alumni at the University of New Hampshire, where Berton had been a long-time downhill ski instructor, had set up a scholarship in his name, and he thought of doing something similar at Newfound. He contacted Normandin, who had completed a 30-year career in banking, ending as president and chief operating officer at Laconia Savings Bank.
“I wouldn’t have been able to go to college without help,” Normandin said about her decision to join Berton in launching the Newfound scholarship program.
Berton naturally thought of Blakeley and Mills, both members the NH Coaches Association Hall of Fame who recently had been the first inductees in the Newfound Regional High School Hall of Fame, and Normandin thought it would be another way to honor the two coaches. They, in turn, agreed to lend their names to the scholarship.
Getting the word out has been a challenge, they said. The old alumni association that used to offer scholarships had disbanded, and it took a while to pull together the alumni names, let alone finding out where they are today.
Last fall, with the help of classmate Terry Corneau, they launched a new website, www.newfoundalumni.com, in an attempt to reconnect with Newfound graduates. It has helped, but they are finding that many of the alumni have moved on and lost interest in their alma mater.
They are hoping to overcome that problem by coming up with new ways to engage others. They are asking for help in coming up with ideas for get-togethers, during Old Home Day or other summer events. They also want to use the website to highlight the stories of alumni.
One current initiative is to start that process by identifying alumni who still live in the area, who have established their own businesses and have raised families who also are Newfound alumni.
The multi-pronged approach is intended to reunite the alumni and to focus on the generations to come by helping them to succeed.
Donations to the scholarship fund are welcome, and may be mailed to PO Box 691, Bristol NH 03222.
30 March 2018
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