Wilkie Family Scholarship Endowment

Education was a love and a cause for Noel D. Wilkie. He was committed to promoting higher education.

Born and raised in Powell, he was the son of civic-minded parents, John D. and Gail L. Wilkie. After graduating from Powell High School, he spent one year at Northwest College before transferring to the University of Wyoming in Laramie. There, he majored in Zoology and Chemistry.

After earning a B.S. degree from UW, he attended the University of Pennsylvania Dental School and graduated with a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree. He then began a 28-year career in the U.S. Navy Dental Corps, during which time he served in Vietnam and received his certification as a Diplomate from the American Board of Prosthodontics in 1970.

He went on to become a faculty member teaching dentistry at Georgetown University and New York University from 1970 until 1994. His last appointment was as Associate Professor and Director of the Advanced Education Program in Prosthodontics at New York University College of Dentistry.

Because he believed so strongly in promoting education, Dr. Wilkie established a memorial endowment to help promising young students. Initially, he dedicated the memorial scholarship to his parents. With his death in 2005, his daughter, Nancy, followed through on one of his final wishes — that being to change the name of the scholarship fund to include all members of the Wilkie Family and to care for the fund so it might continue to grow.