Fallen soldier won't be forgotten

A friend who considered him family makes sure by setting up a scholarship in the name of Marc Anderson, who died a hero in Afghanistan.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 5, 2002

More than 60 years ago, the families of Marc Anderson, an Army Ranger who died in Afghanistan last month, and Kenneth Chapman were united by an act of kindness.

Today, the kindness flows the other way, helping the Andersons find solace in their grief.

Chapman's grandfather died in 1938 at age 41, leaving his grandmother to raise two young children alone in Alliance, Ohio. She had to go to work on an assembly line to make ends meet.

Marc Anderson's grandparents lived across the street and they just "sort of adopted my family," said Chapman, a math instructor at St. Petersburg College.

Two families became one. Children went back and forth. Holidays together. Gifts. One year, Chapman's uncle went to summer camp, paid for by the couple that Chapman came to call "Uncle John and Aunt Margaret." They had "hearts of gold," he said. The children grew up and scattered across the country, but the bond stayed tight.

Chapman was out of town when he got the news. His wife called his hotel: Did you hear about the chopper that got shot down? The seven soldiers killed trying to rescue a fallen Navy SEAL?

Chapman tore down to the hotel lobby, searching for a newspaper, hoping for a mistake.

But there it was -- the picture of Marc Anderson, the "cousin" 20 years his junior, the man he remembers best as the family baby, tumbling around with his two older brothers, "like three little kittens."

Chapman couldn't sit by.

"It was time for me to do something," Chapman said Wednesday. "To say thank you, and to honor him."

He asked Anderson's older brother, St. Petersburg resident Stephen Anderson: What about a scholarship in Marc's honor?

Which is why, on Thursday, St. Petersburg College announced the establishment of the Marc Anderson Memorial Scholarship.

It's for any SPC student with a GPA above 3.5 pursuing a career in math, math education, or a math-related field, with preference given to children of members of the military. Chapman plans to give money himself, and to spend part of the summer asking civic groups, businesses and others to donate.

Chapman hopes to raise $10,000 by August and $100,000 in three years.

Stephen Anderson said his brother would be delighted. Marc Anderson directed that part of his life insurance be used to help pay college tuition for a former student.

"What's helped us the most, is that Marc died at 30, but to see the number of people he touched in those 30 years, that people are willing and wanting to do these things, to make sure his memory lives on," Stephen Anderson said.

The SPC fund isn't the only one. The Bailey Family Foundation said Thursday that it will pay the other half of the tuition for Anderson's former student. Scholarship programs also are being set up in Lee County, where Anderson taught before entering the military, and in Alliance, Ohio, said Stephen Anderson.

"All these scholarships are not something we started," he said. "Other people came to us and asked if it would be okay. That just speaks miles for my younger brother."

Perhaps it speaks as well about how small kindnesses weave together to form ties that last.

"Back when our grandparents were young, that's how people were," Stephen Anderson said. "People helped each other. As bad as 9/11 was, it's helped us as a nation. People are doing that again. It's us as a community. People help each other."

To help

Donations can be sent to: Marc Anderson Memorial Scholarship, St. Petersburg College Foundation, P.O. Box 13489, St. Petersburg, FL 33733. Or call 341-3302.

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