The Mary Hepburn and Genie Hayes Scholar Grant for Teacher Education

The Mary Hepburn and Genie Hayes Scholar Grant is a restricted, renewable scholar grant focused on supporting students who are seeking degrees in teacher education. The scholarship is funded by Valerie Hepburn and David Hayes to honor their mothers, strong women with different life experiences, each of whom believed in the transformative power of education and life-long learning.

Mary Zoghby Hepburn was born in 1932, in Middletown, New York. As the daughter of recent immigrants to the United States, she was proud of her Lebanese American heritage.  Mary earned her bachelor’s degree from Drew University, Madison, NJ; her master’s degree at the University of Iowa; and her doctorate from Florida State University.  In 1969, she joined the faculty in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, ultimately becoming one of first women to earn the rank of full professor at UGA.  Her scholarship and service focused on civic education and the social sciences.  Mary was active in state, national, and international research consortia dedicated to advancing the fields of civic education, public inquiry, and service learning.  Her work took her to Argentina, Germany, Hungary, and Ukraine, where she made an impact and life-long friends. Mary, along with her best friend and husband, Larry, and their colleagues at the Vinson Institute, authored Georgia’s definitive textbooks on state and local government along with many handbooks and research studies for public officials. Mary passed away in September 2022.

Genie Holley Hayes was born in South Alabama in 1923. Her childhood was framed by the Great Depression. As she remembered it, everyone worked from “can to can’t.” She grew up to love reading, passionately, and until her last days, even while suffering with macular degeneration, she read or listened to every book the regional library could obtain for her. Genie graduated from high school in the early 1940s, got married and immediately went to work. During World War II, she worked in the Brunswick, Georgia Liberty Shipyard as a true “Rosie the Riveter.” Her husband and life-partner, Dewey, served the country in the Navy. Following the war, the family moved to Pelham, Georgia, and Genie began her decades-long profession as a bookkeeper at a textile plant, where she remained until her retirement. She grew up during challenging and turbulent times, when economic and educational opportunities for women were limited, yet she found joy in her career and her community. Genie valued family, friends, laughter, learning, and service to others. She reflected in a letter to her son, “I have learned the hard way that one can do anything that love demands.” Genie passed away in March 1997.