First Ever Alumni Scholarships Awarded At Founder’s Day
In less than two years after re-founding the Ohio Acacia Alumni Association, funding was secured by alumni to award not one, but two undergraduate scholarships during the 2025 Founder’s Day events.
Founders/Cupp Scholarship Awards 2025 (left to right – Evan Shaheen; Aaron Kellenberger ’89 Alumni Association President; Josh Melms)
One strategic initiative of the Ohio Acacia Alumni Association is to offer scholarships to deserving undergraduate members. Over the past two years, the association has been fundraising among many of our re-founding fathers from back in the late 1980’s for scholarship funding. In addition, funding from the Acacia Fraternity Foundation given on behalf of the Cupp brothers, Marshall #14 and Nelson #94, became available and was merged our local fundraising efforts. Thus, the “Founders/Cupp Alumni Scholarship”, or “Founders Cupp” for short, was born!
An application and selection process was created and made available to undergraduates with top academics who were asked to respond to a series of questions including “how do you expect to give back to Ohio Acacia after graduation?”.
Two recipients were chosen from the pool of submissions and awarded $500 scholarships as well as wooden Acacia “cupps.” The recipients for 2025 were Josh Melms, a junior Exercise Physiology from Maryville, OH with a 3.7 GPA and Evan Shaheen, a sophomore Entrepreneurship/Business Analytics major from Brecksville, OH with a 3.3. GPA.
The “Founders Cupp” will be awarded each year at Founder’s Day so long as funding remains available. If you would like to give to the Founders Cupp fund, please use the QR code, below and specify “scholarship award donation” in the “what’s this for?” section.
Congratulations Josh and Evan!
