Irene T. Takahashi Memorial Scholarship Fund #00350
To provide an annual, nonrenewable grant to the graduate of a Midland County high school for the purpose of further study in chemistry or a closely related science.
From the fundholder:
Our father was born into a family of silk worm farmers in Japan and immigrated to the United States to attend school. He always stressed to us the importance of education, and Irene was the best student of all of us. She was always willing to help us with our studies, and wanted to teach when she graduated from the University of Washington with a doctorate in chemistry. Jobs were limited at the time and the prejudice against a woman, especially a minority woman, was very prevalent. She took a job at Dow Chemical and lived and worked the rest of her life in Midland, but always wanted to be an educator when she retired from Dow. We, her brothers and sisters, thought it fitting that we combine our resources and establish a scholarship in her memory for young students to fulfill her ambition to teach. We struggled to get an education with limited means and a brief sojourn in an internment camp during the second World War, and so we understand the struggle of achieving a higher education with limited means and the benefits that can be achieved from education.