Issue: Spring 2017 | Posted: June 1, 2017

Old School

Shoaf Scholarship established to honor longtime Union supporters

David and Linda Shoaf didn’t attend Union University, but that hasn’t stopped them from being strong supporters of the institution in a number of ways.

Linda is currently serving on Union’s Board of Trustees for the second time. The Shoafs’ contributions in 2002 to the Ryan Center for Biblical Studies led to the purchase of a 1615 edition of the Geneva Bible, the first Bible to penetrate the English world and be widely used by the common people.

The Shoafs also sponsored the Ryan Center’s REF500 conference this spring and have been generous donors to student scholarships and the annual Scholarship Banquet.

Recently, the Shoafs’ two daughters and sons-in-law established the Linda R. and David B. Shoaf Scholarship Fund to honor their parents and to make it possible for home schooled students to attend Union University.

The Shoafs grew up in West Tennessee and were familiar with Union, but they went to college elsewhere. After moving to Horn Lake, Mississippi, more than 20 years ago, they became reacquainted with Union through their friendship with Charles Fowler, Union’s former vice president for university relations.

“Union walks the talk,” Linda Shoaf says, “and I think it’s evident on that campus. It is Christ-centered, and that is very important to me, and I feel that there is a tremendous emphasis on prayer and biblical study.”

The scholarship established by her children to honor her and her husband came as a pleasant surprise to Shoaf.

“I think it says how much my husband and I appreciate Union and what they do,” she says. “We see the value of Christian education much more so today than when we were in school. For them to do this, I think they realize that there was nothing that could honor us more.”