T-Shirts still available for those who donate $100+
The IBMA Foundation is pleased to announce the Gloria Belle Memorial Bluegrass Education Endowment Fund was established at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CFMT) on July 31, 2024. More than $22,000 has been raised since the Gloria Belle Memorial Scholarship was announced June 1. The first scholarship ($1,000) will be awarded to a student for the fall semester of 2025. The remaining funds raised will be transferred to the CFMT Gloria Belle Memorial Scholarship Agency Endowment Fund, where it will continue to grow and fund the annual scholarship.
Our goal is $40,000, which would enable the Foundation to award a $2,000 annual scholarship, so please keep your donations coming in! The scholarship is named in memory of Gloria Bernadette Flickinger (1939-2023), best remembered for her work with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys under the stage name, “Gloria Belle.”
Spearheaded by Foundation board member Becky Buller, the scholarship is for a student enrolled in a college, technical, or trade school who is engaged in the bluegrass music community, either as a musician/singer or behind the scenes as a DJ, event producer, graphic designer, videographer, photographer, luthier, etc..
Click here for more information about the scholarship. If you would like to help the IBMA Foundation honor the memory and music of Gloria Belle by encouraging the next generation of bluegrass music, please consider making a tax-deductible donation of any amount by clicking here.
For donations of $100 or more, we would like to thank you with a Gloria Belle Memorial Scholarship t-shirt. Click here to donate $100 or more to get a Gloria Belle t-shirt.
Our heartfelt thanks to the following donors who helped us exceed the initial goal of $20,000 to endow the scholarship: primary donors Jim and Kathy Kortge, and Doug and Pat Miller, along with Fred and Joy Bartenstein, Becky Buller, Nancy Cardwell, Garret Davis, Laurie Greenberg, Dennis and Linda Melton, Jennifer Preston, Trisha and John Tubbs, John Young, and the many Becky Buller Band fans who contributed to Becky’s Facebook Fundraiser in 2023-24.
“I never got to know Gloria Belle personally,” Becky Buller said, “but as I’ve studied her story and work, I’ve come to greatly admire her passion for bluegrass, her musicianship, her sweet spirit, and her tenacity, which is why I set out to establish this scholarship in early 2023.”
Thanks in advance for your continued support of this important new scholarship!
RETURN to the August 1, 2024 issue of The Cornerstone.
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