OXNARD : Scholarship Created to Honor Father

For Ken Gose’s children, it was a choice between setting up a scholarship in their father’s name or continuing to buy him Christmas and birthday presents he didn’t need.

“There’s only so many shirts you can buy him,” tax attorney Gregory R. Gose, 38, said of Camarillo City Councilman Charles (Ken) Gose, 72.

So, at the suggestion of Kenna Gose, 41, she and her brothers Gregory and Michael decided to forgo future presents.

Instead, they established a $2,000 scholarship at Oxnard’s Channel Islands High School, where Ken Gose taught economics, government and psychology for 22 years.

Administered by the nonprofit Ventura County Community Foundation, the scholarship will be awarded for the first time this year to a graduating senior who has at least a 3.5 grade-point average and an interest in public affairs.

High school officials around Ventura County said the $2,000 grants--which will be funded by an ongoing endowment and presented annually--may be the only ones in the county that were set up by children in honor of a living parent.

The Gose children said a scholarship seemed an appropriate present for their father, who with their mother, Ola, always emphasized the importance of education to his family.

“It’s just giving kids an opportunity, giving them a chance,” said Kenna Gose, who works with a nonprofit philanthropic organization in Manhattan Beach, where she lives. “It’s the same thing my parents did for us.”

Michael Gose, 46, an education professor at Pepperdine University, said the scholarship was a fitting tribute because his father had strongly encouraged his students at Channel Islands High to go on to college.

“He turned out dozens and dozens of letters of recommendation every year” for students applying to college,” Michael Gose said. “We thought this was the best way to recognize both his teaching and his relationship with students, to continue his legacy.”

A native of Tennessee, Ken Gose was in the Navy 26 years before he retired in 1968 to begin a second career teaching high school. In 1990, at age 69, he retired from teaching and was elected to the Camarillo City Council about six months later.

Tom Parizo, student activities director at Channel Islands High, recalled that Gose was popular with students and was once named teacher of the year. Gose was known for assigning his classes various hands-on projects, including one where students founded an imaginary country and set up its entire government, Parizo said. “He made the classroom come alive for his students.”

For his part, Ken Gose said he is pleased his children chose to establish the scholarship at Channel Islands High.

“There’s been a lot of mighty fine students from there, and I’m delighted some of them are going to have this opportunity,” Gose said.