Thomas W. Huston Memorial Scholarship

Few events have touched the heart of the Cal Lutheran community like the death of Thomas Huston in October 1982. Tommy was a freshman from Hayward, California, who had only been attending classes for one month. But even in that month on campus he had made many friends. When he was killed in a one-car accident on Kanan Road on a Sunday, the announcement of his death on Monday sent shock waves across the campus. Those shock waves turned into action in just a few weeks.

First, a scholarship fund was created from unused tuition payments for the rest of his freshman year. The fund grew as donations were received from his parents, grandparents and other relatives back in Ohio, many of whom had attended another Lutheran college, Wittenberg University. And what surprised and pleased Tommy’s family the most was the support the student body gave the scholarship. Gifts were received from the freshman class and the CLC Business Association, and the sophomore class held a fundraiser and donated the proceeds to the scholarship. Still other gifts were made by many faculty and staff.

When it came time to define the intent of the scholarship, Tommy’s parents provided information that helped shape the direction of the scholarship award. His mother, a marriage, family and child counselor, described her son as a young man with an easy-going nature, a wide range of interests and a good sense of humor. He had not yet declared a major but had shown interest in the sciences, geology in particular.

But more than that, she said, throughout his life her son had expressed a deep concern for injustice in the world as well as unfair and thoughtless actions and attitudes of people toward one another. That trait, more than anything else, caused his family to request that the Thomas W. Huston Memorial Scholarship be given to a freshman student who expressed an interest in service to mankind.

The creation of the Thomas W. Huston Memorial Scholarship was a positive outcome from a very tragic car accident. In 2011, 29 years after Tommy’s death, the scholarship fund received a generous gift from the charitable remainder trust of Tommy’s grandmother, Marianne Weller. Tommy had been her first and only grandson, and her love for him endures in the form of the scholarship that bears his name.