The Lamber Goodnow legal team at Fennemore is proud to announce the 2020 winners of the Lamber Goodnow Education Scholarships!
Top row, left to right – Laken Kincaid, Gordon Siu, Claire Stevens
Bottom row, left to right – Stephanie McKellar, Addison Stone, Sokea Chidlow
College Scholarships Two for $1,000 each
Addison Stone
Currently a junior at Texas Woman’s University, Addison Stone’s idea of innovation is to influence progress and positive change through a commitment to compassionate servant-leadership. By serving, she believes that she empowers and encourages others, and in the past five years Addison has accumulated over 2,500 hours of volunteer service. At the Shiloh Field Community Garden, Stone has toiled to provide nourishment for the hungry, and as a SportsWorld volunteer, she trains basketball campers in proper character, sportsmanship and technique. She also mentors 20 pre-teen girls twice a week, and for the past four summers, she’s joined her choir to visit juvenile detention centers. She lives by the quote from Mother Teresa: “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
Laken Gayle Kincaid
After witnessing her grandfather fall into the abyss of dementia while in a nursing home, Laken began giving him makeshift art classes, and noticed how much his face brightened as he produced sketches and paintings. She then decided to expand her services in order to allow everyone in the nursing home to have a chance at recovery via art therapy. Laken soon opened a nonprofit volunteer organization called “Art with the Elderly.” Through the program, she has been able to teach over a hundred senior citizens how to create art free of charge. The program is currently expanding across the nation with chapters springing up in Missouri and Indiana. Laken is a proud member of the class of 2024 at John Carroll University.
Nursing Scholarship One for $1,000
Stephanie Evelyn McKellar
An ordained minister, McKellar now plans to begin her accelerated BSN program at Ursuline College, starting this month – and slated to graduate in May of 2022 to become an RN. An advocate of compassion and justice in the world, she helped establish a school for children of war in Lebanon to receive education and psychosocial support as a way to combat poor health education and services amidst the traumas of war in Syria. One day, McKellar hopes to be a travel nurse, encountering the diversity of our planet and human beings in all their abundance, serving in a plethora of contexts, community health needs and care settings.
Law School Scholarship One for $1,000
Gordon Siu
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Yale and looking at a bleak legal job market, Siu enlisted in the Marines rather than attending law school. And while not an athlete, by overcoming his fears of swimming, heights and public speaking – he was transformed as a person and a future attorney. He has now become an advocate on behalf of disabled veterans, both helping introduce legislation on public-wide reforms in California and convincing public agencies to comply with laws that already exist. He now plans to make an impact in the legal profession, representing others who share his passion for access to justice and is currently a 1L, Class of 2023 at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.
Medical School Scholarship One for $1,000
Claire Stevens
As an undergraduate at Rice University, Stevens enrolled in the Alzheimer’s Buddies volunteer program where she witnessed firsthand the social isolation that comes with Alzheimer’s disease, including the drastic emotional changes and the ability to function on a cognitive level that makes it easy for healthy people to connect with each other. She went on to become co-director of the program and spoke at Rice’s first-ever Alzheimer’s Symposium. Committed to combining social support and sound science to make positive change as a physician, Stevens is now enrolled at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
Physical Therapist/Occupational Therapist Scholarship One for $1,000
Sokea Chidlow
Beginning life in an orphanage in Cambodia, Chidlow from an early age dreamed of obtaining an Occupational Therapy degree. In the sixth grade, she convinced her parents to become part of an organization called Safe Families, created to keep children out from Chicago foster care system and to keep families intact. From then on, she has devoted her life to helping children, and being an advocate for the underprivileged – and to assisting children achieve their highest potential through problem solving and diligent work. Currently an OT student at Lewis University, MSOT Class of 2022, Chidlow plans to improve the lives of children in underserved communities.
After a year like no other, the Lamber Goodnow legal team salutes the innovation and creativity of these finalists, who showed bravery in their pursuit of academic excellence amidst the pandemic. We also want to thank all of the hard working students who entered our scholarship competitions in 2020. The economic realities facing many students during these uncertain times made our academic scholarships more competitive than ever. As always, we encourage all of you to continue following your dreams. Through all of the upheaval we are now experiencing, the power of education remains undaunted. One great idea from an ignited mind still has the potential to change the world.
Our 2021 scholarships program is now open. How do you plan on changing the world? Please let us know, and perhaps we’ll be honoring your big brain this year.