Max and Phyllis Hinkle established this fund in honor of Max’s father and stepmother. The purpose of the fund is to provide vocational scholarships to Washington County High School Students. The scholarship is to be rotated between the three county high schools.

A life-long resident of Washington County, Howard was born on February 9, 1914 to Earl and Emma Hinkle. He graduated in 1933 from Salem High School. That was on a Friday. The following Wednesday, Howard started to work as a mechanic for Simpson Brothers Construction Company. He worked there for about a year. “I started to work on automobiles when I was twelve years old,” Howard once stated. “It was all I ever knew.”

By 1946, Howard was the owner of an Oldsmobile dealership, Salem Motors Company. He retired at age 68, after 48 years in the car business. “I’ve sold quite a few automobiles in my lifetime. We could repair anything from the front bumper to the back; from the top to the bottom. I always said, ‘If human hands made it, then human hands can fix it.’”

Juanita (Myers) Hinkle, was in the same Salem High School graduating class with Howard. She was born in Washington County on January 3, 1914 to Orlando and Maude Myers. Juanita went to college to study education. She received her teacher training at Central Normal, Ball State University and Indiana University. She taught for many years, finally retiring in 1975 from Bradie Shrum Elementary School. During her tenure at Salem, Juanita spent two and one-half years teaching Special Reading and during her final year of employment, she was Supervisor of the Tutorial Program and Teacher’s Aid Program.