The Mary Ellen Gase Scholarship was created to encourage gifted students of voice, keyboard, band, and orchestra to pursue post-secondary courses in music therapy, education, or performance and to spread their love of music in the neighbourhood.For the last 18 years of her career, Ms. Gase has taught gifted and talented students at the Centre for the Arts and Sciences. She started out as a teacher at South Intermediate School. Ms. Gase created the voice/keyboard curriculum for the Centre for Arts and Sciences while she was a teacher in the Saginaw Public Schools. throughout 250 students were sent by Ms. Gase to many collegiate music workshops throughout the course of her teaching career, including Interlochen, Blue Lake, Blue Lake International Choir, Westminster, and Fred Warning.
In 1996, the Saginaw Community Foundation gave her a Grants for Excellence Award so she could pay for original piano books that their pupils had created. After 40 years of teaching music in the Saginaw Public Schools, Ms. Gase retired in 1999. By offering this scholarship, she keeps up her commitment to music and young people.
