Scholarship Comes Full Circle

Donor & recipient honor each other through scholarships

Raina Rose Tagle wasn’t your typical twenty-something scholarship recipient in 1992.

Inspired by the generosity of her President’s Distinguished Scholarship donor for providing four years of financial assistance, Rose Tagle attempted the nearly impossible upon her graduation in 1992: she endowed a $50,000 PDS in honor of her own PDS donor, Sam Harrill.

Fifty-thousand dollars is a hefty sum of money, especially for a recent graduate.

Though Rose Tagle only met her scholarship donor once as a college student, she was determined to repay his support by taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy to fund the Harrill PDS.

“Helping students in a lasting way is so important,” Rose Tagle said. “By attaching Sam’s name to the scholarship, my hope was that every student who receives it will hear how that scholarship came to be. Maybe they will be inspired to honor a person who helped them by establishing a scholarship of their own.”

As a student at Oklahoma State, Rose Tagle received the Paul Eugene and Bonnie Mae Pruitt Harrill PDS award, which Sam Harrill established in honor of his uncle.

Sam Harrill received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from OSU in 1949, and loyally supported his alma mater in many capacities. Rose Tagle’s correspondence with Harrill during her college years formed the basis of a unique donor-recipient relationship.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, Rose Tagle felt that establishing the scholarship was simple option she described as easy and economical due to her young age at the time.

Originally, Rose Tagle expected the PDS to be funded and awarded after her death. Wanting Harrill to see the scholarship awarded in his lifetime, Rose Tagle and her husband Tom began providing scholarship funding themselves six years ago. Harrill met the first recipient of his honorary scholarship before his death in 2003.

“The name of Sam Harrill will live in perpetuity thanks to this scholarship,” Rose Tagle said.

But the gifts didn’t stop there.

Touched by Rose Tagle’s generosity and loyalty, Harrill established the Raina Rose Tagle Leadership Award to commemorate her outstanding leadership while a student, when she served as Student Government Association President and Chair of the Student Centennial Council. Recipients of the award are selected for exceptional leadership capabilities at OSU.

“Sam attended the ceremony the first time the leadership award was presented,” Rose Tagle said. “Along with my family, it was a very special occasion to spend with him.”

Rose Tagle currently resides in Arlington, Va. with her husband and their son, Trip. She serves as principal of RRT Management Consulting, which provides executive coaching and organizational development services to nonprofits and other socially conscious organizations.

The President's Distinguished Scholarship, one of OSU’s most highly desired undergraduate scholarships, is a four-year $2,200 per year scholarship funding tuition and books for aspiring scholars. Students are selected based upon exemplary academic, leadership and community accomplishments.

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