News

Announcing the winners of the OCSEA scholarships...

Posted Jul. 17, 2024 by

 

Congratulations to the 2024 OCSEA Les Best Scholarship winners!

We are so excited to announce the recipients of this year's OCSEA Les Best Scholarship awards. The scholarship winners include six dependent children of OCSEA dues-paying members and two OCSEA members, for a grand total of $12,000 in scholarship dollars that can be used toward helping these union families pursue a college or vocational school education. Additionally, two OCSEA members were awarded a $250 book scholarship each.

 

The Winners Are...

Dependent College/Vocational Scholarship:

  • Blake Johnson - $2,000 - dependent of Brittany Brown, Treasurer of State
  • Sujan Sriram - $2,000 -  dependent of Haripriya Sriram, Ohio Dept. of Taxation
  • David Bright - $2,000 - dependent of Lukose-Bright Thomas, Ohio Dept. of Health 
  • Katelyn Heath - $2,000 - dependent of Curtis Heath, Bureau of Environmental Health and Radiation Protection
  • Ethan Lukey - $1,000 - dependent of Jennifer Lukey, Bureau of Workers' Compensation
  • Riley Wolfe - $1,000 - dependent of Matthew Wolfe, Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources

Member College/Vocational Scholarship:

  • Landon Conley - $1,000 - Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Corrections
  • Alicia Perkins $1,000 - Ohio Dept. of Transportation
  • Sherlyn White - $250 book scholarship - Ohio Dept. of Mental Health and Addiction Services
  • Felicia Edeh $250 book scholarship - Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation and Corrections

Learn more about the OCSEA Les Best Scholarship HERE. The scholarship programs opens each year on January 1, with a deadline of April 30. It is open to active, dues-paying members as well as their dependents and spouses. Want to promote the scholarship or other union benefits programs at a chapter event or union fair? Contact the OCSEA Communications Department at communications@ocsea.org.

 

In an essay about the importance of unions, awardee Blake Johnson recounted a story of his grandfather joining the Pittsburgh Plate Glass union in his twenties.

 

“Workers were laid off left and right as industry moved away, leaving behind ghost towns. For my grandfather, however, things were okay because when he joined PPG back in the 1970s, he signed up for the union, not knowing what it really was. But when jobs started leaving town, he realized its importance…My grandfather’s decision to join the union really laid the groundwork for all that I have done so far in college, including my travels abroad, and I owe a large part of that success to the PPG union.”