Special to The Hays DailyNews

LAWRENCE -- The University of Kansas Office of Admissions and Scholarships has announced the 75 students who have received prestigious Summerfield and Watkins-Berger scholarships for fall 2009.

The scholarships provide $4,500 per year for four years to each student.

The scholarships, funded through KU Endowment, are awarded to top students graduating from Kansas high schools in recognition of their outstanding academic achievements and records of community service and leadership.

The Summerfield scholarship, KU's first merit scholarship, was established in 1929 by alumnus Solon Summerfield with a gift to KU Endowment. He supported the scholarship program throughout his lifetime and, in his will, provided for its continuation through gifts from the Summerfield Foundation.

Summerfield, a Lawrence native, earned bachelor's and law degrees from KU in 1899 and 1901, respectively, then moved to New York, where he founded the Gotham Silk Hosiery Co. Summerfield Hall, home to KU's School of Business, was named for him at its dedication in 1960.

Northwest Kansas recipients are Michael Paul Albert, Natoma, and Alexandra Ruth Orr, Phillipsburg.

The Watkins-Berger scholarships for women were created through gifts to KU Endowment from the estate of philanthropist Elizabeth Miller Watkins and from alumnus Arthur Berger.

Miller Watkins provided a number of significant gifts for KU during her lifetime, including KU's first scholarship halls for women. At her death in 1939, her estate benefited KU through the gift of her home, the Outlook, now the KU chancellor's residence. Funds from her estate have provided for scholarships, professorships and the acquisition of land and buildings.

In 1943, Berger established a scholarship fund at KU Endowment in memory of his older sister, Emily Berger, who earned a chemistry degree at KU in 1914. She died in 1920, just before completing her master's degree. Berger and his wife, Marie, both landscape architects, made additional gifts for KU scholarships, including estate provisions, until Marie Berger's death in 1963. His original 1943 gift for a scholarship fund eventually became the Watkins-Berger Scholarship Fund.

Among the recipients is Tabitha Leigh Marcotte, Hays.

To be eligible for the Summerfield and Watkins-Berger scholarships, high school seniors need a cumulative unweighted 3.65 grade-point average, an ACT score of 31 or higher or SAT of 1360 in math and critical reading and graduation from a Kansas high school.

The scholarship funds are managed by KU Endowment, the official fundraising and fund-management foundation for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the oldest foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.