A longtime scholarship that has benefited western Nebraska medical students at UNMC for the past 23 years has been expanded to provide support to nursing students as well.
The Dr. Max and Raynette Raines Memorial Scholarship provides financial assistance to UNMC students who are pursuing degrees in medicine and nursing. Eligible recipients must have graduated from high schools in Brown, Chase, Cheyenne, Custer, Dawson, Deuel, Dundy, Garden, Garfield, Keith, Lincoln, Perkins, Phelps, Red Willow, Rock or Valley County in Nebraska or Sedgwick County in Colorado.
The Raines family established the memorial scholarship through the University of Nebraska Foundation in 1983 following the tragic death of Dr. Max Raines two years earlier. The North Platte physician died in a car accident that occurred while he was driving to care for an ill patient. Dr. Raines was a 1943 graduate of the UNMC College of Medicine.
Last year, the Raines’ son, Dr. Lawrence Raines of Bloomington, Ill., expanded the scholarship to benefit nursing students and to honor their mother’s memory. Mrs. Raines, a 1942 graduate of the UNMC College of Nursing, passed away in 2005.
“The Raines family supports this scholarship at the University of Nebraska to continue our parents’ lifelong commitment to providing high quality health care to rural Nebraska,” said Dr. Raines. “They utilized their UNMC health care educations serving our country in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and later the people of western Nebraska.
“Our rural Nebraska upbringing has served us all extremely well in our various pursuits. We hope that given the opportunity to pursue health care careers, some of the scholarship recipients will choose to do so in communities in western Nebraska.”
Scholarships such as those established through the Raines family’s gifts often provide students with needed financial assistance. The average debt load, for example, carried by a UNMC medical student graduating this year is $132,900 and by a nursing student is $26,000.
Persons interested in making a contribution to help increase scholarship support available through this fund should contact Patty Sherman at the University of Nebraska Foundation at 502-4114 or psherman@nufoundation.org.