GRESHAM - Bob Klopke knew how expensive higher education could be.
He'd just sent the youngest of his three daughters off to college, and as principal of the Gresham School, he'd seen many other students do the same.
Seeing the success of Shawano's Dollars for Scholars program, which had been raising money for scholarships for high school graduates pursuing post-secondary education since 1993, he thought Gresham students, too, could benefit from a program like this.
So, in 2001, Klopke started sending letters to people in the community he thought would be interested in starting a fund, and holding meetings.
Before Klopke and the group even started asking for donations, he remembered, a farmer who lived just north of town handed him $100 or $200 out of the blue, simply telling him to "use this to get the fund going."