03 Nov The Continuation of Giving: How One Family Turned Loss Into Legacy
Linsie Middlesworth has a lot to share. A high school sweetheart-turned-husband, gone too soon. A father laid to rest recently. And in between, 25 years of quiet giving to a community that has meant so much to the people who have mattered most in her life.
Linsie prefers to “start at the end” of the story when discussing the K.C. Runyan Scholarship Fund, which was set up at the suggestion of her father to honor the memory of her husband, K.C., after a tragic car accident.
“This scholarship is an opportunity,” she said of the fund, which she established 26 years ago at the Community Foundation of Grant County, “It’s an opportunity for someone to honor somebody through a donation to a scholarship.”
Her most recent opportunity to encourage people to support the fund was after the recent passing of her father, Jerrell “Reece” Peacock, who was a guiding light in her life.
To Linsie, a scholarship is a way to turn grief into something that lasts. A gift made in someone’s memory keeps working year after year, carrying that person’s name to a young person they may know personally or have never met.
“It’s a way of giving, and now the scholarship is giving to someone else, and then that recipient gives to someone else. It’s just a continuation of giving,” she said. “That’s what I love about it.”
Now Linsie is back at the beginning, telling the story about who K.C. was. He was a graduate and three-sport athlete at nearby Madison-Grant Jr./Sr. High School. He was passionate about serving others and chose nursing as a profession.
She didn’t know all the ins and outs of how endowed scholarship funds worked when she was younger, but Linsie liked the idea of something permanent. So, she established the fund to support Madison-Grant Jr./Sr. High School graduates who are seeking careers in the medical field.
“I really wanted scholarship recipients to embody the things that were important to K.C.,” said Linsie, who has since remarried and raised a family in the Converse area. “I never dreamed that it would still be going, and it’s a healthy fund. This year, we even had two recipients.”
Over the years, dozens of students have received the scholarship. One of them was Courtney (Clem) Middlesworth, whose connection to Linsie runs deeper than the name they now share.
Courtney received the scholarship in 2007 and 2008 while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU). While she never met K.C., she knew that the money came in his memory, which meant something to her.
“When you receive something in memory of somebody, there’s a sense that you need to steward it well,” she said. “I didn’t know K.C. when I applied, but I knew who he was, I knew Linsie, and I wanted to honor his memory.”
Courtney later earned a master’s degree in nursing education from IWU. She built her background in cardiac critical care at IU Health Methodist and IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Since 2020, she has been a faculty member in the Pre-Licensure Division of Nursing at IWU, where she teaches Foundations of Nursing, Nursing Research, and Medical-Surgical Nursing.
Linsie has watched Courtney continue to grow.
“I have seen her work at the bedside. I have seen her go back to school. Now she’s teaching our young nurses how to be nurses,” Linsie said. “When I see Courtney, she is the picture of who I imagined that scholarship recipient to look like. She has continued her education, remains in nursing, and teaches the next generation. She is paying it forward. Every year when I write those congratulatory cards, I think of her.”
Fast forward to today, when Courtney joined the Community Foundation of Grant County Board of Directors. At a recent board meeting, the scholarship committee reported on roughly 200 scholarship awards for the year. As Courtney scanned the list, one of them stood out.
“I raised my hand and said it’s blowing my mind to see another kid’s name next to this scholarship, because this is one I received,” she said. “It was a full-circle moment.”
The student who once received the scholarship was now helping to give it to the next young person in line. It was the continuation of giving Linsie had described, running through a single person. To Courtney, the list of funds was no longer just names set up by people she didn’t know.
“Before, it was nice people set aside funds for a nice thing for their community,” she said. “Now it’s these are generous, loving people who care about the people in their community. It makes me proud. This is our home, and there are good people who live in it.”
The two women share more than a last name. Their lives had been woven together long before either married into the Middlesworth family.
“It’s the way our lives have intertwined, and continued to intertwine,” Courtney said. “Because it started in a special place, it made the ways we’ve connected since feel special, too. It’s people like Linsie who make me want to serve. That’s the kind of person I want to be.”
This is the continuation Linsie described at the very start, the giving that never quite stops. A husband gone too young was honored with a scholarship. And now a father, newly grieved, becomes a reason for others to give, so a young person who will never meet K.C. or Reece can pursue a career of service in the medical field.
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