Palatine resident Pamela Olander is renewing her effort to raise money for a scholarship at Fremd High School that will annually honor two students — one who was bullied and another who did something to stop bullying. She’s doing so in honor of Johnny Trout, a boy who was the subject of bullying during Olander’s years at Fremd.
Daily Herald file photo
As the Fremd High School Class of ‘75 gathers for a 50-year reunion this weekend, Pamela Olander of Palatine is hoping for renewed interest in the John Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship launched at the 40th.
Named for a once-bullied classmate who died of a heart attack in 2011, the scholarship fund initially collected $65,000 but is now down to $189 after having been awarded to 17 students over the past decade.
The intention — largely adhered to — was to award a scholarship to two members of each graduating class at Fremd, one anonymously to a bullied student and the other to one who stood up to bullying.
“I thought it was important to honor the people who stand up to the bullies, because that’s hard,” Olander said. “You risk being bullied yourself. But there shouldn’t be bystanders.”
Palatine resident Pamela Olander was honored in 2015 with Hoffman Estates’ Great Citizen award for her organization of the John Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship at Fremd High School.
Courtesy of the village of Hoffman Estates
John Trout was a student with a vocal impediment that kept him from speaking until therapy helped him when he was about 7 years old. But even afterward he spoke with a high-pitched voice that caused him embarrassment in high school, his mother’s attorney explained in 2015.
Though Trout was highly intelligent, Olander and fellow classmate Mark Filosa recalled he also suffered from an auditory sensitivity that caused him to cower in terror in the hallways when fellow students made hissing noises at him — a not uncommon occurrence.
Olander’s inspiration for the scholarship came from a group email from Filosa leading up to the 40-year reunion, pointing out no one else was sharing any guilty memories of this behavior.
John Trout, namesake of the John Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship at Fremd High School.
“I just failed,” Filosa told the Daily Herald at the time. “I didn’t do anything. People said it’s easy now to be 58 and know that it’s wrong. But the truth is, we knew it was wrong at 18.”
The $10,000 monetary goal in 2015 was far exceeded, reaching $15,000. But when Trout’s mother Jeanne died at 94 shortly afterward, she left $50,000 that spared the scholarship from having to raise any more money since then.
Olander said the aim has been to provide individual scholarships of $2,500, approximately a semester at Harper College.
Jeanne D. Trout, mother of John Trout and a former faculty member at Fremd High School, who left $50,000 to the scholarship fund honoring her son upon her death in 2015.
“I think it’s what it symbolizes that makes it meaningful,” she added. “It’s a way of taking some action against this heinous behavior.”
In her work as a psychotherapist, Olander has become convinced bullies are created and working through their own trauma.
The long-delayed need for more money has arrived. Olander is asking each member of the Class of ‘75 to donate $50 and planning some type of fundraiser like a casino night for the fall.
She also hopes the scholarship will become better publicized at Fremd itself, in the wider community, and perhaps be an influence on other schools.
“It would be a shame for it to just go defunct,” Olander said. “That’s why I’m stoking the embers.”
Members of the community can support the effort by writing checks to the District 211 Foundation, with some form of “John B. Trout Anti-Bullying Scholarship” written on the memo line, and mailed to District 211 Foundation, 1750 S. Roselle Road, Palatine, IL 60067.
Olander said she can be reached for more information about this scholarship, or advice on setting up a similar one at another school, at [email protected].
Gerald Steele is the founder of Stonegate Health Rehab. He shares expert insights, recovery tips, and rehab resources to support individuals on their journey to wellness.