The Osage Minerals Council announced four recipients of their Wah-Tiah-Kah Scholarship for the upcoming fall semester.
Blake Bledsoe, Jordan Brace, Braiden Holloway and Allison Koopman will each receive $1,000 as they further their educations in an energy-related field, said Minerals Councilman Myron Red Eagle.
The council started the Wah-Tiah-Kah Scholarship program in 2016.
“I knew the Nation had their scholarship program, but we wanted to help out students going into an energy-related field, people majoring in energy-related sources,” Red Eagle said who was on the 2nd Osage Minerals Council. “We base it on Wah-Tiah-Kah because they sent him down here to inspect the land, he was a surveyor you might say.”
Red Eagle noted that current OMC employee, Lanayah Turley, is a past recipient of the scholarship, “So, it’s already paying off. She came back to work for us.”
The OMC awards the scholarship twice annually in recognition of Wah-Tiah-Kah, who originally surveyed the present-day location of the Osage Nation in 1870-71 to determine whether the tribe should leave its Kansas lands and move to Indian Territory. It is said that as Wah-Tiah-Kah walked the land, he envisioned his grandchildren prospering. Wah-Tiah-Kah believed that Wah-Kon-Tah had blessed this land for the Wahzhazhe people, according to published reports.
The students may be awarded additional funds for each subsequent semester provided they submit a completed renewal form.
The Fall 2020 Wah-Tiah-Kah Scholarship recipients are:
- Blake Bledsoe, of Fairfax, will be a sophomore at Cowley College in Arkansas City, Kans. He is working toward an Associate in Nondestructive Testing Technology and is expected to graduate this December. He wants to use his degree to further his career in the welding field and work in the oil industry as a Nondestructive Weld Tester.
- Jordan Brace, of Pawhuska, will be a freshman at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology in Okmulgee, Okla. He is working toward an Associate in Applied Science in Pipeline Integrity Technology, with hopes of starting a career in the Pipeline industry and traveling the country.
- Braiden Holloway, of Fairfax, is a sophomore at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, Okla. He is working toward an Associate of Applied Science, Process Technology degree and plans to graduate in May 2023. Upon graduation, he would like to work for the Osage Nation, OG&E or the refinery industry at Phillips 66.
- Allison Koopman of Flemington, N.J., is a senior at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. She is working toward a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with a minor in Math. She is expected to graduate in May 2023 and with her degrees hopes to further study the field of oil fracking to produce clean energy.
For more information about the Wah-Tiah-Kah Scholarship, contact the Osage Minerals Council office at (918) 287-5346.