Scholarship to assist engineering Scholars

12/4/2007
Schreyer Scholars enrolled in the College of Engineering will be eligible for a new scholarship endowed by University alumnus and State College native John D. Bender.

The George E. and Beverly McNaul Bender Honors Scholarship recognizes Bender's parents. The late George Bender was a 1947 Penn State liberal arts graduate who went on to earn a medical degree from Temple University. His career included service as a physician at the University Health Services in Ritenour Building. During World War II, George Bender was a B-24 pilot who flew 35 missions without losing a single man or plane, his son said. John Bender described his mother as "the heart and soul of the family" who began her studies at Penn State, but "ultimately sacrificed her own educational pursuits to raise four children -- two physicians and two nurses."

The scholarship is one of three John Bender has endowed through a $150,000 gift. Bender earned a master's degree in engineering mechanics from Penn State in 1976. Before enrolling at Penn State, Bender received his baccalaureate degree from Lehigh University. He also is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, completing his specialty training in physical medicine and rehabilitation, and neuromuscular and electrodiagnostic medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. After settling in Boulder, Colo., Bender co-founded Rehabilitation Associates of Colorado and then Physicians Intra-Operative Monitoring. A father of three children, he resides in Lafayette, Colo.