For more than 150 years, the Doub family has been entwined with the history of Clark-Pleasant schools.
The land that David and Mary Doub settled on and farmed has become the home of Clark-Pleasant Middle School and Ray Crowe Elementary School. The homestead of Mary Doub’s parents has become the site of Grassy Creek Elementary.
Many of their descendants graduated from Whiteland High School and Whiteland Community High School.
In honor of the family’s long legacy in the community, and to ensure its impact continues on into the future, remaining family members have donated $90,000 to create a scholarship endowment. The endowment will allow the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation to award an annual four-year $1,000 scholarship to a student exhibiting attributes important to the Doub family: faith, family, hard work, integrity and responsibility.
In giving this donation, the Doub descendants laid a foundation supporting educational excellence that will impact students for years.
“The family is very passionate about education as a whole, and the Whiteland community. They feel a very strong sense of connection here,” said Jenny Zahm, interim executive director of the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation.
In 1850, Mary Doub’s parents had moved from their home in the North Carolina mountains as part of a wagon train to Johnson County. David Doub moved from North Carolina on his own soon after, and together with others who had moved to Indiana from North Carolina, formed a tight-knit community.
The Doubs were tenant farmers, and they purchased land from family in the Pleasant Township area of the county. The children all learned together in what became known as the “Carolina school.” Many of the North Carolina families attended church at Glade Methodist Episcopal Church.
All five of David and Mary Doub’s sons would graduate from Whiteland High School, and two of them, Harry and Frank Doub, fought in World War I.
Harry Doub’s daughter, Ruth Ann Doub Callon, is considered one of the pioneers of girls and women’s sports in Indiana, and she is enshrined in the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and the Franklin College Athletic Hall of Fame.
Despite their impact and presence in Johnson County, the Doub name is fading away. When D. James “Jim” Doub of Whiteland died in October, he was the last member of the family with the Doub name in the county.
That was why descendants approached the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation earlier this summer to discuss their donation for a Doub family scholarship.
The Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation was founded in 2012, and focuses on raising funds to enhance educational opportunities for students at Clark-Pleasant schools. Since it was established, the organization has provided more than $279,000 in grants to students and teachers.
“Among schools in the area, that’s pretty young. We’ve had a pretty fast trajectory in terms of getting things up and running and getting grants,” Zahm said. “We’ve done great for as young as we are and as much as we’re doing, so these kinds of steps building an endowment gives us more permanence.”
The endowment will be part of the Pathways to the Future Scholarship program through the Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation. Eligible students are college-bound seniors, both who are pursuing an associate’s degree or career certification at a two-year college or technical school, or pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a four-year university.
“We give out six of those every year, and starting in 2019, we made those four-year renewable scholarships,” Zahm said. “Previously, we would raise money and give out those six every year, and that was the end of it. But in the past few years, we’ve been trying to build up an endowment so they produce money on their own.”
With the Doub family’s gift, the foundation is confident the money for scholarships will be there, as opposed to focusing solely on fundraising.
“It’s more of a guarantee that that money won’t go away. There’s always this uncertainly in life — are we going to make enough money to cover these scholarships? There’s a pressure to raise your funds. This is nice to have it there all the time,” Zahm said.
The education foundation worked in recent years to reach people in the community, discussing with them the benefits of making donations to the endowment to honor the legacies of their families. The Doub family’s gift helps illustrate the impact that can have, she said.
“We want to get the message out about how you can leave a lasting impression so some of these older family names don’t fade away,” Zahm said.
At a glance
Clark-Pleasant Education Foundation
What: A non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds that enhance educational opportunities within Clark-Pleasant Community School Corporation.
Schools served: Nine
Grants distributed: More than $279,000
How to give: Donate online at clarkpleasanteducationfoundation.networkforgood.com. Sponsorships and donate-while-you-shop opportunities are available at clarkpleasanteducationfoundation.org.
Sponsorships are available. Learn more at clarkpleasanteducationfoundation.org/sponsorships.
