The estate of former Haines Mayor, farmer and science teacher Robert “Bob” Henderson has donated $220,000 and about 30,500 shares of stock from his estate to the University of Alaska Southeast.
The gift will create the “University of Alaska Southeast Robert Henderson Memorial Award for Mariculture & Fisheries” to provide scholarships and research experience for students studying fisheries science with a focus on aquaculture.
Children Tom Henderson, Barbara Cave, Kathy Crenshaw and Anne Swenson established the scholarship fund in memory of their late father.
Tom Henderson, an oyster farmer in Kake, said the scholarship will perpetuate his father’s interests in agriculture and education. He said his father also had an interest in the region’s economic health.
“My feeling is aquaculture should be a big part of economics in Southeast,” he said. “Getting into aquaculture is a natural move for a lot of people in this region.”
Recipients must be graduates of small high schools in Southeast. Tom Henderson said small schools have fewer resources than larger schools in Juneau or Anchorage.
Students must also be enrolled full-time in either a two-year or four-year degree program studying fisheries technology, biology, marine biology or fisheries with an interest in mariculture or aquaculture.
“(Aquaculture) is not a temporary industry like extraction; it lasts forever,” Tom Henderson said.
Robert Henderson also donated his 14-acre farm on Allen Road to the American Bald Eagle Foundation in 2010.