Preparing the Way

Scholarship Provides Opportunity for Future Optometrist

By Burton Webb, Ph.D.

Founded by John and Alice Ware, the mission of the Ware Bluegrass Foundation is to enable and encourage institutions and service providers to offer vision-oriented services to underserved persons of all ages who are challenged with impaired vision of every kind. The Wares, both blind since birth, lived in Northern Kentucky most of their lives.

The wind brushed her face with foreboding as the first tentacles of Hurricane Ian caressed the shore. No one knew exactly how bad this would be, but they knew it would be bad. Twenty-four hours passed, and her home was intact. However, many communities she loved were swept into the raging sea from their foundations.

Bailie Featherston wondered many things in those first few weeks following the destruction of her hometown of Estero, Fla. She had been accepted into the Kentucky College of Optometry just before the storm, and she worried how she would pay for it, whether her grandparents and friends would rebuild, and most of all, how all of this tragedy could be knit together into a life filled with caring for others.

As fall passed into winter and spring, Featherston watched as the world around her began rebuilding. The large piles of rubble were being transformed into structures of recovery. Power tools hummed in constant cacophony in the background of her life.

Still, the core question remained: How in the world would she pay for optometry school when her family was so consumed with rebuilding their homes, their neighborhoods and their lives?

In April, four months before Ian slammed into the Florida coast, a grant writer from the University of Pikeville penned the following phrase in a letter to the Ware Bluegrass Foundation Board of Directors, “UPIKE is writing to be considered as a grant recipient… for the purpose of funding a scholarship to benefit a deserving student from southwest Florida…”

Long before the hurricane, UPIKE Trustee Carl Westman and his family hosted a group of four young men at their home during the spring break of 1994.

The Westmans were incredible hosts, introducing their guests to the culture and food of the Southwest

Florida region. The students were “enthusiastic and appreciative,” recalled Westman, “but I must confess that my family and I were the recipients of a majority of the benefits resulting from the notion that a group of Pikeville College students might enjoy coming to Southwest Florida on their spring break.”

Now, watch how God prepared the way.

Donnie Akers ’94, O.D., was a student on that trip to Florida in 1994. Akers had completed his academic training as an optometrist and was now an integral part of the faculty and later the leadership of KYCO. Westman is no longer a board member at UPIKE, but he is currently the director of the Ware Bluegrass Foundation located in Naples, Fla. Featherston became the first recipient of a scholarship awarded by that same foundation that covers nearly half of her tuition.

“Hurricane Ian devastated my hometown last fall, and seeing how many people the storm affected was heartbreaking. The Lord has been faithful in helping the area rebuild, and I believe this scholarship is another blessing from Him,” said Featherston. “Someday, I hope to be able to give back in underserved areas where eye care is needed.”

Perhaps David knew what he was talking about in Psalm 32 when he wrote:

Let all the faithful pray to you

while you may be found;

surely the rising of the mighty waters

will not reach them.

You are my hiding place;

you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance.