Ralph and Mary Kay Belter of Seadrift, Texas, made a $15,000 gift to the Foundation to establish the award in memory of Dr. Gwinn M. Lovel, Mary Kays brother.
The renewable scholarship will be awarded to a student enrolled at Southeast majoring in criminal justice with a sociology minor with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. The Department of Criminal Justice and Sociology Scholarship Committee will select the recipient.
Dr. Gwinn Marshall Lovel was born June 14, 1938 in Hollis, Oklahoma, and married Anne Marie Skelton on Sept. 28, 1963, in Greenville, Mississippi. They are the parents of two sons, Jeffrey and Michael.
Dr. Lovel, who served in the U.S. Air Force at Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas, taught sociology at Southeast Missouri State University from 1969-2003, retiring as professor emeritus of criminal justice and sociology. He as a member of the Midwest Sociological Society and the American Sociological Association. While at Southeast, he helped with the college freshmen orientation program.
In addition to his career at Southeast, he volunteered at Saint Francis Medical Center and attended Grace United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau where he sang in the choir for many years.
For more information, please contact the Southeast Missouri University Foundation at (573) 651-2203 or foundation@semo.edu.