(U-WIRE) AMHERST, Mass. — Lance Cpl. Eric P. Valdepenas never had a chance to graduate from the University of Massachusetts. Valdepenas, a marine who put his studies on hold to serve his country, was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near him in September 2006.
A new scholarship under Valdepenas’ name will allow him to symbolically finish what he started at UMass, said his sister, Karen Ing.
“I know he wanted to go back once he came back from Iraq and hit the books again,” Ing said, “but he wasn’t able to do that.”
The “Lance Corporal Eric Paul Valdepenas Scholarship” will be awarded to one Isenberg School of Management student every year. The student must display the same traits that Valdepenas once did as a student.
A native of Seekonk, Mass., Valdepenas was a 21-year-old sophomore at UMass when his unit was called up in December 2005, and he was deployed to Iraq. A member of the 1st Battalion, 25th Marines, weapons company, and a machine gunner, Valdepenas was killed on Sept. 4, 2006 while on patrol in the Al Anbar Province.
Since Valdepenas was never able to return to Amherst, Ing said the scholarship was later created “to carry out what he couldn’t finish.”
The scholarship was spearheaded by J. Brian Palmer, a UMass alumnus and co-worker of Ing. Palmer said that when he first heard that Valdepenas had been killed in battle, he was deeply affected.
Over time, Palmer began coming up with ideas to honor Valdepenas and his service to the country. Eventually, with the help of Ing, Palmer created the scholarship and committed $36,000 to it.
“I’m pretty proud that someone like that would go to UMass,” Palmer said. “He’s a real heroic kid and supporting the University financially, it seemed like the perfect fit.”
White Mountains Insurance Group, where Palmer works as the Chief Financial Officer, has also committed $4,000 in matching funds for the scholarship. Applicants for the scholarship must be someone who “actively participates in the community, demonstrates good character and has a documented financial need,” a press release states.
Palmer said anyone applying most likely will also have to submit an essay that family members of Valdepeñas would read. Ing said other family members also attended UMass.
“Above all, Brian is honoring Eric’s own sense of honor,” said Lou Wigdor, a spokesman for the School of Management. Wigdor said the scholarship will kick in this spring and will be awarded to one student per year.
Although the scholarship is being offered to SOM students, Valdepenas was an engineering major while attending UMass. When composing the scholarship, Ing said the main objective was to build it around the type of person Valdepenas was.
“Really, what we did was we based the scholarship around what embodied Eric,” Ing said, “in terms of being a good person, a good moral character, someone who liked to do a lot of volunteer work.”
Palmer said he was impressed with Valdepenas’ courageous decision to leave school and serve in the military. Valdepenas’s unit was scheduled to return about a month after he was killed.
“I think what made it difficult and probably a little more touching in a way was that he was so young,” Palmer said. “He put himself in harm’s way for something he believed in. To me, it just made sense to set up a scholarship honoring that type of dedication.”