Nationwide Ántonia Scholarship Opportunity

The Willa Cather Foundation is pleased to announce that a permanent endowment for a new scholarship program has been established as a result of the generosity of Antonette Willa Skupa Turner. The Ántonia Scholarship, as it will be called, was created to honor Turner’s grandmother, Annie Sadilek Pavelka, prototype for Ántonia Shimerda in Cather’s novel My Ántonia and Mary Rosicky in Cather’s short story “Neighbour Rosicky.”

The scholarship will be open to students nationwide and will provide an award of $1,000 to a high school graduate who is planning to enroll as an English or history major at an accredited college or university. “We are incredibly grateful to Antonette Turner for sharing our interest in fostering the reading and study of Cather in high schools across the country,” Ashley Olson, executive director of the Willa Cather Foundation said. “This scholarship fund is particularly meaningful because it will enable us to expand our reach to support students outside of our headquarters here in Nebraska.”

Scholarship applicants will be asked to write an essay on Cather’s novel My Ántonia or her short story “Neighbour Rosicky.” Fittingly, the first scholarship will be awarded in 2018, as we celebrate the 100th publication anniversary of My Ántonia. Applications will be available online by December 1st, 2017, and are due by February 28th, 2018.