ROBINSON, Illinois – June 23, 2025) Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation is pleased to announce that Donald Draper and Samuel Rains are recipients of the 2025 Captain R. Dean and Mary E. Postlewaite Scholarship. This is the fifth year the Community Foundation has given the scholarship award since its establishment in late 2017.
Pictured L to R: D. Wyatt Draper, Samuel Rains
Wyatt Draper is a 2025 graduate of Hutsonville High School. He plans to study agriculture at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois.
Samuel Rains is a 2025 graduate of Robinson High School. He also plans to study agriculture at Lake Land College in Mattoon, Illinois.
The Captain R. Dean and Mary E. Postlewaite Scholarship Endowment provides scholarships to graduating seniors and alumni of the high schools in Crawford County, Illinois, who are pursuing a degree in agriculture or have been accepted into the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) in Urbana.
Captain Robert Dean Postlewaite was originally from Palestine. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in agriculture before joining the U.S. Army Air Corps and later Pan American Airways as a pilot during WWII. Mary E. Postlewaite, who grew up in New York City, worked as a secretary for Pan American, and then became one of the airline’s first stewardesses when Pan Am launched transatlantic passenger service in the 1940s.
Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation manages more than 250 funds for the immediate and long-term benefit of communities in southeastern Illinois. For more information, contact Alex Pleasant, President/CEO of Southeastern Illinois Community Foundation, at 217.342.4988 or alex@southeasternillinois.org.
