Fred Stevenson

Scholarship Fund

A $1000 scholarship for students at a college or university in the SE Council majoring in a field of study that fosters the preservation of gamefish or their habitats, presented in honor of Fred Stevenson, the founder and first president of the Southeastern Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers.

Above - Grayson Patton, a graduate student at Eastern Kentucky University, receives 2009 scholarship of $1000 from past VP-Education Mike Arnold. See previous winners. 

Overview

A $1000 scholarship for students at a college or university in the SE Council majoring in a field of study that fosters the preservation of gamefish or their habitats.

Application

Here is a sample letter applying for the scholarship (from a previous winner of the grant to the the FFF-SEC Education VP). Here are the REQUIREMENTS for application to the nomination list for the Fred Stevenson Scholarship Fund.

Background

Fred Stevenson was the founder and first president of the Southeastern Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers. In 1991, several states from a few other councils were combined to from the Southeastern Council. About 800 Federation members and member clubs from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana (east of the Mississippi River), Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee were put into the new council. Fred gathered his initial working forces mostly from the Southern Council but also from other areas of the country. The SEC soon became the fastest growing council and in three years became and remained the largest council in the Federation for nearly a decade.

The idea for a scholarship fund in the Southeastern Council came along in 1994 and was mainly promoted by members of the Atlanta Fly Fishing Club. They proposed that a grant be given annually to a student attending a public university or college within the council's boundaries (currently Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) and majoring in a field of study that fostered the preservation of gamefish or their habitat. Examples of such majors could include fisheries management, wetlands ecology, environmental science, marine biology, to name a few.

A proposal was made to the SEC Board to move $15,000 from the general operating fund to a special account, one which would be increased until it was self-sustaining. The idea was that the monies generated from interest would make up the bulk of a $500 grant to a deserving college student from one of the SEC public universities or colleges.

Fred was still president at the time the proposal was made. Through his tireless efforts, the proposal became a reality. For his dedication to the council, his leadership for nearly a decade, his efforts to promote education at both the member and youth levels, and his work to make the scholarship fund part of the SEC's contributions to our society, the SEC Council Board decided to name the fund the "Fred Stevenson Scholarship Fund".

In 2008, Mike Arnold resigned his position as SEC Education VP to take a break from FFF SEC management. In 2009 Robert Prytul stepped up and volunteered to take Mike's place as Education VP and is now working his way into the position.

It was a surprise that in the first seven years the council had only had two or three students make application and be awarded with the grant monies. To improve those statistics, Mike Arnold started a campaign to make the process easier and more pointed towards actually giving the grant every year. One of his first changes was to ask the SEC Board of Directors to increase the award from $500 to $1000 annually. Mike also started the electronic mailing scheme to fifty plus public universities and colleges in the SEC geographical boundaries to try to stir up more applications for the grant.