MCC alumni endow new scholarship

McHenry County College is offering a new scholarship, endowed by the Sally Reuter Radka family, that will award $500 to a deserving student beginning this spring.

Sally Reuter Radka was a single mother of four when she enrolled in the early 1970s at MCC, then located at the old Pure Oil Building in Crystal Lake. She later earned a master's degree in social work with honors from the University of Illinois at Chicago and served as an outreach social worker for the Lake County Special Education District.

Eleven members of Sally Radka's family, including husband John Radka, two of her children and a granddaughter, followed in her footsteps as MCC students. John Radka, now of Champaign and formerly of Woodstock, established the scholarship to honor her devotion to learning.

"She had a tough life," Radka said, alluding to Sally's losing both of her parents while in high school and then losing her son Gregory in a car crash in 1977. Her daughter Cindi and son-in-law Steve Harvey both died at young ages.

Sally Radka was diagnosed with dementia in 2015 and died at 82 in November 2017.

The Radkas were committed to education and enrolled in a real estate course together at MCC in the 1980s. A Korean War veteran, Radka was a lifelong educator, serving as a speech teacher, assistant principal, guidance counselor, principal and superintendent.

For more information about the Sally Reuter Radka Family Scholarship, call the Friends of MCC Foundation at (815) 455-8721, email foundation@mchenry.edu or visit www.mchenry.edu/scholarships.