By By JOHN EBY / Niles Daily Star
DOWAGIAC – It started with a pen and, after a limousine ride from the Law and Courts Building to Wayne Township, ended with the village that raised Sarah Ann Wilkinson to be an attorney crammed into the basement of North Wayne Mennonite Church on a rainy Friday night.
But the end was actually a beginning as Cass County's newest attorney, and 2000 Dowagiac co-valedictorian, announced creation of The Inspiration Scholarship Foundation, of which she will serve as president.
"There was a reason I picked this room. It was in this room eight years ago that Scott Teter gave me this pen that says Prosecuting Attorney for Cass County. I said to him, 'This is going to make me want to come back and take your job' – as I have been telling him since I met him in eighth grade. He laughed and said, 'By the time you're ready to take it, I'll be ready to give it to you.' He became a mentor to me and that pen has gone with me to every exam that I've ever taken. I snuck it into the Bar exam, even though it was probably considered contraband because it wasn't an approved pen. The pen reminds me of the fact that someone who did not have to believe in me believed in me. Scott was not my family. He's not an uncle or a relative. He's someone in the community who said, 'I think you have the potential to be a lawyer and I believe in you, so go and do it.' That meant the world to me."
"The pen meant something else to me," Wilkinson continued. "It says Cass County on it. That represents the community that I knew I was getting my law degree to come back and serve – all of you. The law degree wasn't something I wanted to do for me to go and make a ton of money. I was probably one of only five people the first day who raised their hand and said, 'I'm here to do something good.' I was getting that degree to come back and help you. If I made it through, no matter what they threw at me, I was coming back here to serve all of you. (The pen) reminded me of that every day."
"That's why we're crammed in here, in this basement," she said. "It's where I got the pen, and that's where my legal career for me officially started. This is really an exciting occasion for me. After 19 years of school, I'm done. I've got no more homework. And I'm finally an official attorney, so I don't have to ever worry about perhaps the judge saying, 'Hey, you don't have a license. Get out.' It's a toss-up what I'm more excited about – being an attorney or not having the homework. It's a really close call."
Her mother, Mary, who works at the 1899 courthouse for Michigan State University Cooperative Extension, "has been a very devoted, very supportive mother. I come from a single-parent home and one thing my mom taught me from the very beginning was that did not mean I was not loved, did not mean I did not have a supportive family and, above all else, did not mean I could not accomplish something if I wanted. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned from her is that a person's future is not dictated by a label society puts on it, it's dictated by the dreams and goals they set for themselves."
"I would not be here today without all of you," Wilkinson said. "It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a very dedicated and encouraging village to raise a lawyer. Whether you like it or not, you are that village that raised me and I owe you a debt of thanks. Some of you gave me summer jobs so I could afford expenses for college. Some of you moved me to college, including across the country to D.C. for a semester – and back. Others were my mentors and made sure I set goals and made them and kept my grades up and kept going. Others of you studied with me, like my mom. Some of you sent care packages because you knew I was too busy studying to go out and get groceries on my own. You sent me cards because you knew I needed that little bit of encouragement to get through my classes. Or you prayed for me."
"Every time I practice law, I practice because you helped me get there, and that means a lot to me," she said. "I do need to say thank-you. So we're having a cookout, but that wasn't enough. So we'll get a cake that says 'Thank you' on it. It confused a lot of people who thought it was going to say 'Congratulations.' That cake is not mine. It's for all of you. But cake and a cookout weren't enough, either. It needed to be bigger because what you did was bigger. You supported me, encouraged me and inspired me – and I didn't want that inspiration to stop with me, so I got together with Monica (Clupper, a 2002 DUHS graduate who will graduate in December with her elementary education degree from Western Michigan University; she works for Tyler Collision Center in Niles as an administrative assistant) and Shannon (Wiklanski, who earned her bachelor degree in business administration from Michigan State University in 2004 and graduated from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2007; she works for the Dispute Resolution Center of Central Michigan in Lansing). Together, we started the Inspiration Scholarship Foundation. It is now recognized by the State of Michigan as a non-profit organization designed with two purposes. One, it will create its own scholarships that will go to Michigan residents. Eventually, it will be able to support other scholarships. Every scholarship that the foundation gives out, the individual will get a pen engraved with the foundation's slogan, 'Dare to Inspire,' with the hopes that person takes that pen, as I took Scott's pen, achieves their dreams and inspires someone else. Moments ago, the foundation elected its very first board of directors."
In addition to Wilkinson as president, Wiklanski and Cooley Professor Evelyn Tombers are co-vice presidents, Clupper is secretary and Melissa Maiers is treasurer. Maiers graduated from Niles High School in 1999 and is also pursuing a bachelor's degree in elementary education at WMU. She will graduate in April 2009. Maiers works as a teller for Fifth Third Bank's Niles branch. As its first act, the board announced three scholarships:
The Brenda Mast Memorial Scholarship, named for a North Wayne Mennonite Sunday school teacher who succumbed to cancer in 1995. She kept track and wrote encouraging letters to her students, including Wilkinson. Mast's mother carried on the tradition. This annual scholarship will be awarded to a student demonstrating academic achievement and dedication to their community and church.
The Scott L. Teter Litigation Award will be given each year to a third-year student at Thomas M. Cooley Law School who excels in the litigation program and evidences a desire to use his or her law degree to serve the people of Michigan "as Scott has done, first as prosecutor for Cass County and now as an assistant attorney general," Wiklanski said. "I finally get to give you a pen," Wilkinson said to her mentor, who was momentarily speechless.
"I was the first person in my family to go to college and the first one to go to law school," said Teter, who is running for Fourth District Judge in August.
"When I met this young lady, what I saw in her were the things that helped me make it through. Not 'someday I hope I will be a lawyer,' but a commitment that 'I will be a lawyer someday.' It wasn't to make a lot of money, but if you knew the law and cared about people, you could make a difference in their lives. You could speak for people who could not speak for themselves. You could fight for people who could not fight for themselves. You could stand up in court and fight for children who couldn't fight for themselves. I'm very proud of what this young lady has done, but more excited to see what I know she will do."
The Mary J. Wilkinson Scholarship will be given each year to a single parent deemed an inspiration to his or her children by seeking an undergraduate or graduate degree who demonstrates financial hardship. "Mary did her best to provide everything she could for Sarah," Clupper said.
"She knows more about law school than most parents because she was involved in her daughter's life" from the time she started school in September 1987 until Sarah graduated from law school. "Life is never easy for a single parent. It's all the work with half the labor force and finances. Mary proves that no matter what obstacles you're faced with, hard work, faith, determination and love can overcome them. I'm sure Mary didn't think her baby girl, born a preemie and hardly alive, would become an attorney. I'm sure all she ever dreamt of was giving her daughter a life without heartache, loss or pain."