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News Release

Last modified: Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Third class of Cox Scholars selected at IU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 24, 2007

EDITORS: Links to print-quality photos of each Cox Scholar are located next to their name.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Twenty-one Indiana University undergraduates have been honored with selection as Cox Scholars for the 2007-08 academic year.

The Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Scholarship Fund is IU's most generous merit-based scholarship for working students who are Indiana residents. The renewable scholarship provides 75 percent of the estimated cost of attendance on the Bloomington and IUPUI campuses. Applicants must demonstrate high academic achievement and work to earn 25 percent of their college expenses.

The Cox Scholarship offers special programs and seminars as well as an optional semester of study abroad. Now in its third year, the program funds more than 60 scholarships annually.

The Cox Scholarship program is made possible by a generous $15 million gift from IU alumnus Jesse Cox and his late wife, Beulah. The Coxes created the scholarship fund for working students because they understood the rigors of balancing school and work. He paid for his own IU education during the Great Depression by working and by running his own businesses, including a transportation service between Bloomington and Indianapolis and a mimeograph service. Jesse Cox credits his IU education for "decades of achievement and most of all for my supreme happiness."

After graduation in 1944, the Coxes started the J.H. Cox Manufacturing Co., which supplied venetian blinds to retailers Sears & Roebuck, L.S. Ayres and William H. Block. Shortly afterward, they bought a small, bankrupt company and started Aero Blind & Drapery Inc. When the Coxes sold the business in 1982, Aero had 920 employees and annual sales of $30 million.

Through ventures such as Jesse H. Cox Inc. and B.J. Realty Inc., the Coxes began to farm nearly 1,500 acres of land in Boone, Hamilton and Putnam counties, and to manage commercial real estate rental property.

"Jesse and Beulah Cox understood both how challenging it can be to finance a college degree and how important that degree is to a student's future," said Curt Simic, president of the IU Foundation, which administers the scholarships. "These students are as deserving as they are hard working."

Members of the 2007-08 class of Cox Scholars are:

• Erika Barrios, Lebanon, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Sarah Bielski, New Albany, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Jessica Daugherty, Bloomington, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Deanna Elkins, Marion, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Cody Grabbe, Indianapolis, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Lauren Hall, Indianapolis, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Justin Hoering, Fort Wayne, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Chelsea Kennedy, Huntington, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Britt Leiendecker, Indianapolis, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Melissa Maxwell, Brownsburg, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Paula McCann, Bloomington, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Talia Montesonti, Indianapolis, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Roya Porter, Indianapolis, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• David Rosenberg, Indianapolis, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Adam Schaller, Cedar Lake, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Cory Schewe, Indianapolis, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Jena Schrader, Peru, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Sarah Sexson, Indianapolis, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Faye Stokes, Michigan City, IU Bloomington (Link to photo)
• Vivek Trivedi, Indianapolis, IUPUI (Link to photo)
• Jenna Wood, Greenfield, IUPUI (Link to photo)

To learn more about the program and how to apply, go to https://iufoundation.iu.edu/cox/index.html.

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