Dallas Education Foundation
Supporting Education in Dallas, Oregon
2025 - Scholarships
Bonnie Beck and I had the pleasure and privilege to present scholarships to two graduating Dallas High School Seniors last night in the Bollman Auditorium. Rylee Rutan wants to teach art and plans on attending Western Oregon University in the fall. Annie Edmiston plans to teach secondary education and will attend Virginia Wesleyan University in the fall. Best of luck to both of these brilliant and kind young women, who we believe are an excellent investment in the future of education.
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From left to right: DEF board member Bonnie Beck, DHS graduating senior Rylee Rutan, DHS graduating senior Lianne “Annie” Edmiston, DEF Chair Mitch Ratzlaff
Bowling Fun!
​We did bowling today and the kids had so much fun. There were lots of smiles and "happy hops" as the kids were trying this new unit for the first time. Thank you for investing in our kids and school!
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2024 -
Dear Dallas Education Foundation Supporters,
We’re preparing to fund our third education scholarship in as many years for a Dallas High School graduating senior. This year our committee interviewed four outstanding candidates and had a difficult choice that required much deliberation. Ultimately, we chose Anna Button as our 2024 scholarship winner. Anna excelled academically and was also involved in many extra-curricular activities including cheer, track and field, theater and National Honor Society. She was accepted into Western Oregon University and plans to go into secondary education with an emphasis in Spanish. We’re ecstatic to know that another fine human is pursuing education as her professional avenue of service and even mentioned the possibility of one day teaching in Dallas School District.
Our past recipients, Justin Parnell, and Sara Richardson, have both been confirmed by their respective universities, Western Oregon and Corban, as being enrolled in education courses for this coming fall term. So their scholarships from past years are being renewed and funded as this is written! Our board is excited to have implemented this program and to see it become successful for the third consecutive year. Thanks again to our wonderful community supporters for making this possible, particularly the local businesses who came through during our Karma Coffee fundraiser this past Spring.
We also had our quarterly board meeting recently and are gearing up for our fall teacher grant cycle. We’ve again budgeted the largest amount to date for teacher grants in our efforts to support the educational opportunities for students in the Dallas School District. So be on the lookout for updates about that in the coming weeks and months. Int his area, we are again grateful to the Dallas Community Foundation for partnering with us to provide the funds for these grants. We couldn’t do it without their assistance!
As always, if you have a passion for supporting teachers and students in our community, please contact one of our board for information about opportunities to serve and ways to give.
Sincerely,
Mitch Ratzlaff, Chair, on behalf of the current DEF Board of Directors
Amy Aebi—Vice Chair
Sheila Myers
Bonnie Beck
Chris Ellingson--Treasurer
Brittney Rettler-Thomas--Secretary