ESU scholarship benefits S. Lyon Co. students
ESU Media Relations
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
A fourth-generation Emporia State University graduate who brought a farmer’s work ethic to her accounting career has decided to give back to future ESU students with a $50,000 scholarship.
Diane Thomas Mitchell, of Bartlesville, Okla., has established the Thomas Scholarship Fund, creating a renewable scholarship designated for a graduating senior from USD 252, which includes Hartford, Neosho Rapids and Olpe, who is pursuing a business degree at Emporia State.
Mitchell, the manager of Downstream Financial Services at ConocoPhillips, was raised on the family farm southeast of Emporia. She knew rural students had the drive to succeed, but not always the financial means to get there. She also knew an ESU education gave her the skills she needed to compete.
“Emporia State gave me a good foundation,” Mitchell said. “Their business school is outstanding, and what helps make it outstanding is the students. I’m hopeful this will help the business school attract top-notch students. I think that’s important.”
Mitchell’s family has long-established Kansas roots. Four generations have attended ESU, beginning more than a century ago with Mitchell’s great-grandmother, Carrie Gasche Gardner, who graduated in the class of 1898. In 1927, Margaret Gardner Thomas Jones, Carrie’s daughter and Diane’s grandmother, graduated. Diane Mitchell graduated in 1978, and in 2005, Benjamin Thomas, Carrie’s great-great-grandson, earned his ESU degree.
Margaret Jones’s three sisters also earned degrees from Kansas State Teachers College, now ESU: Erma Gardner Bangs (BS 1924), Inez Gardner Butterfield (BS 1928), and Carol Gardner (BA 1930). Education was so important to the Gardner family that their parents, R.O. and Carrie Gardner, sent the four sisters by train to Topeka to live with grandparents and earn their high school diplomas there.
Mitchell and her siblings, Steven and Karen, were raised by Kenneth and Shirley Thomas on the original Gardner farm southeast of Emporia. All three graduated from Hartford High School. Mitchell earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1978, becoming a CPA in 1981.
She went to work for Conoco after graduation, and now holds a senior management position in the company’s accounting division.
Mitchell’s motivation to give is two-fold. First, it’s the example set by her parents, who have established two student scholarships — one on behalf of Margaret Gardner Thomas Jones for Hartford High School students, and one on behalf of her brother, Steven, who died in a car wreck at the age of 40. Second, it’s the generosity of ConocoPhillips. The company matches Mitchell’s gift, dollar for dollar.
“ConocoPhillips has been very good to me, and Emporia State prepared me very well for it, so I thought ConocoPhillips and I could give back,” Mitchell said.
Looking ahead, Mitchell admits that she has high expectations for students who receive the Thomas Scholarship, just like the expectations she has for her ConocoPhillips staff. But with her rural background, she knows those students will bring a rigorous work ethic to the table.
“Anyone who can get additional education can’t help but benefit themselves and their community,” Mitchell said.
• For more information on the Thomas Scholarship, or to donate to the fund, contact the ESU Foundation at 341-5440 or sacfound@emporia.edu.