uncofoundation

After losing their mother at the age of 72 to brain cancer, Pat Conlon’s children knew exactly how they wanted to honor her: by setting up a perpetual college scholarship for a graduating senior from Marysville High School to recognize Pat’s love of education and her beloved adopted hometown of Marysville, Ohio. Since 2004, this scholarship, housed at the Union County Foundation, has awarded nearly $90,000 to make sure students from the town she loved could pursue their college education.

Pat and her husband Bill were the first of their blue-collar families to go to college and they were determined to see their children graduate from college, too. In 1961, Scotts relocated several families from around the U.S. to the Scotts headquarters in Marysville. When the Conlon family joined the Marysville community in 1961 there were less than 5,000 residents and they loved the small-town community.

Sadly, Bill died of a heart attack less than 10 years later, and Pat found herself widowed at just 39 with four young children to raise. After being a stay-at-home mom for several years, Pat returned to the classroom as a third-grade teacher at East Elementary where she worked with a wonderful team.