Leonard E. and Louise A. Plachta Scholarship Fund

Louise Plachta was a non-traditional student from the day she stepped into a classroom of fresh-faced freshmen at the University of Detroit many years ago. She had been out of high school for about ten years; it then took another ten or more years to earn her baccalaureate degree.

“Sometimes I complained that I’d be 40 or older by the time I got through school, but my best friend would remind me that I was going to be 40 or older anyway, with or without the degree,” Mrs. Plachta said.

Later, after four years of hard work, she received a Master’s of English from Central Michigan University.

“Perhaps my experiences prompted me to say ‘yes’ when, in 1992, then CMU President, Leonard Plachta, asked if I would work with non-traditional students,” she said. “It was my privilege to direct non-trads to the Financial Aid office, to academic advisors, and to other helpful resources on campus.”

Mrs. Plachta worked with single parents; with students who, for various reasons, were just beginning their college careers a year or more after being graduated from high school; and with students who had begun college studies, dropped out, and were now returning to complete requirements for a degree.

She retired in May 2000 as the non-traditional undergraduate-student liaison and advisor to the Phoenix student organization on campus. In May 2014, Mrs. Plachta created the Louise A. Plachta Non-traditional Student Scholarship Fund to support non-traditional students from Isabella County who, because of extenuating circumstances, were unable to begin higher education for at least a year after graduation from high school, or whose college/university studies were interrupted, for whatever reason, but now desire and intend to earn a college/university degree.

This fund is currently growing and will award scholarships in the future.