Michelle LaRose, of Haymarket ,Va., and her brother, Scott LaRose, of Delray Beach, Fla., have made a $500,000 gift to the Ever Elon Campaign to establish the Gail H. LaRose Scholarship, which will assist students with financial need in the School of Education.
“My brother and I feel strongly about establishing this scholarship to honor our mother,” Michelle LaRose says. “She wants to give someone the opportunity to get an education who is as dedicated as she is to teaching and to making a difference in the lives of children.”
Gail LaRose, a 1964 Elon graduate and former teacher, is grateful to her children for endowing the scholarship. She says she and her husband, the late Robert E. LaRose ’66, a former Elon trustee, were fortunate to have excellent teachers and believe strongly in preparing young men and women for the classroom.
“We are in such dire need of good teachers, and I think it’s important to help future teachers get their education at Elon without worrying about how they are going to afford it,” LaRose says.
Robert and Gail LaRose have been among Elon’s most generous donors. The LaRose Digital Theatre in the Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center is named in recognition of their $1 million gift to the university. Robert LaRose served on Elon’s board of trustees from 1985 to 2006, and as chair from 1997 to 1999. He built successful companies that specialize in software applications and integration services for government and commercial enterprises. At the time of his death in 2010, he served as president, CEO and chairman of Agilex Technologies, Inc.
Gail LaRose says she is proud of her alma mater and calls her Elon education “four of the very best years of my life.”
“Elon is a special and dynamic place,” she says. “Having met my husband at Elon makes it pretty special, too. I know how immensely proud he was of how Elon was developing. He knew this scholarship was something we were going to do, and he was proud of that.”