Logan Ramsey
News Editor
Thanks to an endowment of $25,000, the Idaho State University College of Business has introduced a new scholarship called the “Hirning Family Excellence in Accounting Endowment”. This award, provided by Kelly, Kimberly and Art Hirning, the owners of Hirning Buick GMC in Pocatello, will go to one ISU student every year for the foreseeable future.
As long as the student is an Accounting major, a junior or senior and can demonstrate a moderate or high level of financial need, they can apply to receive the endowment. Then as long as they maintain good academic standing the scholarship will be renewed. The amount going to an individual student will be at least $1000, but the amount is likely to grow each year.
“I’m thankful to Kelly Hirning and the Hirning family for making this incredible investment in our students which will positively impact accounting students in the College of Business for generations to come,” said Shane Hunt, a doctorate in Marketing and Dean of the College of Business.
Kelly, who has served on the College of Business Leadership Advocacy Board, got the idea to make the endowment when he was talking to Hunt about the process he went through setting up an endowment in his parent’s name, “The Loren and Debbie Pilgrim Business Excellence Scholarship Endowment.” Hirning decided it would be a good thing to do because, “it would continue to give back long after I’m gone.”
“If they’ve got a promising student who needs some help that’s who it’s going to go to,” Kelly said.
Hunt, who is a first generation graduate, considers attending college the best investment he’s ever made in his life.
“College changed everything about my life,” Hunt said. When he first attended, Hunt didn’t feel confident that he was smart enough to go. A scholarship that he received changed that.
The award itself wasn’t substantial, but, “Somebody, a family that I didn’t know, was investing in me,” Hunt said. It increased his confidence in himself and gave him an added sense of responsibility with his education.
For students who are struggling financially going into their junior year, Hunt believes this scholarship won’t just offer financial support but added confidence as well.
“That acknowledgment and recognition will be something that will help their confidence, but also help them position themselves as they go forward in their careers,” Hunt said.
Hunt believes that the long term benefits from this endowment will be impactful in the lives of students to come.
“Whether your paying for it and your working or your paying for it and you’re taking out student loans, whatever the situation is, what the Hirning family has done will reduce the cost of college and help students complete their degrees and have that same life changing experience that I’ve had, that Kelly’s had and that so many of our graduates have had,” Hunt said.
Hunt also hopes that future graduates who benefit from this scholarship also choose to give back to the university.
“The only thing we would ask of them is as they go forward and build great careers that they work on doing the same thing for the next generation of students, so that twenty years from now an ISU College of Business student can get a scholarship in their name that keeps paying it forward,” Kelly said.
