The University of Oklahoma is still mum about how they utilize the income from their Osage Mineral Estate headright share, but new information has come to light about a scholarship that is offered to Osage students.
In January, the Osage News reported about OU freshman Gianna Sieke searching for answers on how OU spends its 1.72916 headright shares. It was also reported that in the 1970s, an Osage tribal member named Randolph Crawford attended OU and searched for information about a rumored Roxie Scott Scholarship offered to unmarried Osage men attending the university and was unsuccessful. The Osage Tribal Council at the time also stepped in and no information was provided.
Fast forward to the present and Bill Hamm, Osage tribal member and the current Director for Prospect Research at the OU Foundation, said Crawford was absolutely right in that there is a scholarship for unmarried Osage men, but it’s not called the Roxie Scott Scholarship, it’s called the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship. And Hamm should know because he received it.
Roxie Scott was a real woman, non-Osage, and born in 1887. When she died in 1976, she endowed $886,000 to the University of Oklahoma for the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship. It was to be offered to unmarried Native American men, with preference given to Osage men. Lt. Scott was her Osage stepson who died while serving in the former U.S. Army Air Corps before World War II.
When Hamm attended OU, his late father found information on the scholarship, applied for it and Hamm received it. He didn’t think too much about the history of Lt. Scott at the time but he was thankful for the $1,000 he received.
A few years ago, Hamm was working in the Advancement Department of the OU Foundation when they received a research request from a reporter in Jefferson City, Mo., about Lt. Scott.
“He was aware that there was a scholarship in his name at OU and he wanted some information,” Hamm said. “I offered to take that job to do the deep dive because I had received the scholarship and I was really interested to learn more and interested about what he was writing about.
“We supplied that journalist with what we could and he wrote the article that I shared with you.”
The article was published in 2018 by the News Tribune, written by Jeremy P. Amick and gives the history of the short life led by Lt. Scott.
Lt. William ‘Billy’ J. Scott
Scott was born in Pawhuska in 1905 to Eugene F. Scott, a white attorney, and Julia Ann Scott, Osage, according to Osage census records. He was recorded as having a blood quantum of 17/128. Since he was born in 1905, he received a headright share and 160 acres of land when the 1906 Allotment Act was passed. His Osage mother received the same, giving the young family two headright shares and 320 acres.
According to the News Tribune article, his parents would have a baby girl two years later named Violet. According to the Osage census records, his mother Julia died in 1907 and her cause of death is not listed, but given the dates of when the children were born, she may have died in childbirth. In 1914, an article from the Daily Oklahoman listed his father as one of “the intermarried Osages” whose “(wife) and children are upon the tribal rolls.”
Roxie came into their lives when Scott was a young child. According to the “Illustrated History of Tipton Missouri,” published in 2008, Roxie James was teaching music in Oklahoma when “she fell in love with, and married, the widowed father of two of her pupils. Eugene Francis Scott was a lawyer and had considerable oil interests in Oklahoma.”
The couple would eventually own homes in Oklahoma, Kansas City and Tipton. In fact, their former home in Tipton, a two-story brick home, became the Price James Memorial Library.
Scott would grow up and attend Dartmouth College. While there he attended the school’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He graduated with a bachelor of science in 1928 and began training with the Army Air Corps, which later became the U.S. Air Force.
In 1930, he began active duty in Oahu, Hawaii, where he met his untimely death at the age of 26. He began piloting gliders, or sailplanes and set an American glider record for staying in the air 6 hours and 36 minutes. Three weeks after his record-setting flight, his glider malfunctioned and he crashed to his death.
His father died in 1944 and his stepmother, Roxie Scott, moved to Kansas City and later to Tipton where she died in 1976.
Shrouded in mystery
The Osage News reached out to several Native American OU alumni and asked if they had received the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship. The responses were mixed. Some had received the scholarship but didn’t apply for it. Some never heard of it. Some knew about it but could never figure out how to apply. And some were told the scholarship money was used for something else.
Osage attorney, Yancey Red Corn, said he received the scholarship in 1982 but only after his father, the late author Charles Red Corn, argued with the head of the financial aid office.
Both Osage Nation Congressmen Otto Hamilton and Eli Potts received the scholarship. However, while Hamilton applied for it, Potts automatically received it – but during his master’s program and not for his undergrad.
“I am keenly aware of the crippling cost of higher education, and I remain incredibly grateful for all of the financial assistance I received during my time at THE University of Oklahoma,” Potts wrote in a text message. “I distinctly remember having the scholarship being credited to my bursar account, with no available explanation from the bursar’s office. I remember inquiring about the origin of the award, and received no additional information from the bursar.”
The scholarship is listed on the Osage Nation Education Department’s post-secondary resources page but the link takes you to a third-party college scholarship page, collegexpress.com, with information about the scholarship and a link to OU’s website.
How to apply – Osage females too
It is unclear when, but female Osage students can now receive the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship too.
OU’s Student Financial Center Director, Courtney Henderson, who happens to be from Pawhuska, said there is no application for the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship but students can be awarded by notifying her office in the following ways.
- Submit a copy of their tribal membership to admissions@ou.edu
- Students can self-identify with the Student Financial Center by visiting or emailing them. Collected tribal documentation will also be kept for future awarding as well.
Henderson said that if a student does not alert their office that they’re Osage, they can be missed, unfortunately. She said all students can contact her for more information at chenderson@ou.edu.
OU Student Financial Center
Buchanan Hall
1000 Asp. Ave., Room 105
Norman, OK 73019-0230
Phone: (405) 325-4521
sfc@ou.edu
Editor’s Note: On Feb. 27, Gianna Sieke received the Lt. William J. Scott Scholarship.
