After Lives Well Lived, a Couple Creates New Scholarship For Future Teachers
John and Mary Polikowsky spent long, happy careers teaching art and English. Now, thanks to their incredible foresight and generosity, more WWU students who dream of becoming teachers will get their chance, too. The Polikowskys decided to bequeath their estate to Western-including their Edmonds home perched high above Puget Sound-to establish an endowed scholarship for prospective art and English teachers.
Both Polikowskys built rewarding lives in addition to their teaching careers. John, a World War II veteran, spent some of his time in the Army as a ski instructor in Europe and earned an MFA in ceramics through the GI Bill. After his MFA, he taught art at Seattle's Ingraham High School for 20 years. The Polikowskys met at Ingraham, where Mary was a language arts and social studies teacher with a doctorate in English literature. They married in 1993.
While neither graduated from Western, Mary was an assistant professor of English at Western from 1987 to 1994 where she excelled at training and mentoring future English teachers. She was particularly active in preparing student teachers and coordinating their actual classroom experiences with their university courses. Mary and John had very fond memories of their time in Bellingham and as part of the Western community and recalled their time in Bellingham as some of the happiest years of their lives.
In retirement, they shared their love of books and travel, and spent many years sailing the 44-foot sailboat John had built out of an empty hull. While Mary passed away in 2016, the book club she created more than 20 years ago lives on. John died in 2021.
It was Mary and John's desire that their devotion to education live on in perpetuity in scholarships for future teachers. In thinking about their estate and their philanthropic goals, they determined their planned gift would have a much larger impact at their beloved WWU rather than at their own alma maters. They achieved their goals by establishing the John and Mary Polikowsky Scholarship Endowment Fund, assisting deserving applicants to pursue the challenges-and significant rewards-of careers in education.
