Helen Merris Restricted Music Scholarship Fund
This scholarship was established by Donna Merris '61 in honor of her mother, Helen Frohwitter Merris. Helen was born in Bluffs on January 9, 1911. She married Donald Merris in 1928. They owned land and farmed around Bluffs, where they raised five children. As a young girl, Helen studied piano with a noted teacher in Hannibal, Missouri and traveled by train to her lessons. She played the piano for silent movies in the Bluffs Theater, was pianist for the Bluffs Methodist Church, and taught piano lessons to at least three generations of Bluffs area students. Donna is a distinguished musician herself. She was the first female student director of the annual musical of this university. She was a teacher, conductor, performer, director of music education, a lawyer and a judge in New York City. She maintains a lifetime commitment to music and the arts. It is her intention that this scholarship be awarded annually to a deserving student in the School of Music.