Marion Rotary Club’s Warren G. Harding Scholarship Non-Endowed Fund

The Marion Rotary Club Warren G. Harding Scholarship migrated to Marion Community Foundation in 2017.  It honors the late Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1921, until his death in 1923.

Harding was born in Blooming Grove. He lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. He settled in Marion when not yet 20 years old and bought The Marion Star, building it into a successful newspaper. In 1899, he was elected to the Ohio State Senate and, after four years there, successfully ran for lieutenant governor. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914.

Harding was famous for his front porch campaign, remaining for the most part in Marion and allowing the people to come to him. He won in a landslide, running on a theme of return to normalcy (after World War I), becoming the first sitting senator to be elected president, as well as the first president elected following women gaining the right to vote.

Rotary’s Harding scholarship is given to students who attend Harding High School and/or who intend to pursue an education and career in, or related to, journalism, business, history, government, or political science.