BY ANDY TAYLOR
Montgomery County Chronicle

The sacrifice of a Montgomery County military officer who served in the U.S. Army during World War II was recently remembered in a unique way.

The children of George S. Wiggins, a Cherryvale High School football coach during the mid-1930s and later an Independence business owner, have endowed a football scholarship at Kansas State University in Wiggins’ honor. Joan (Wiggins) Goodknight of Independence and her brother Larry Wiggins of Wichita presented the scholarship money to Kansas State University officials in a ceremony on May 10 — which was the observance of Wiggins’ 100th birthday.

The scholarship will be awarded to any undergraduate student who plays football for the KSU Wildcats. Preference will be given to students who are Kansas residents and play the position of fullback or runningback — a pair of offensive backfield positions for which Wiggins played when he donned the leather pads for then-Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science in the early 1930s.

The scholarship ceremony on May 10 was held in the KSU Alumni Center that overlooks the old football stadium where the elder Wiggins carried the pigskin.

“Dad is finally home,” said Larry Wiggins in a telephone interview from his Wichita home. “Over the years, my sister and I always felt it was important to do something to remember our dad. And, our mother, Maxine, who died in 2007, always had a goal of doing something to remember dad’s name by linking it to Kansas State University.”

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