Weatherford, OK – Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) has named Danni Sottile of Elk City, Oklahoma as the Dr. Gerry & Phyllis Church Scholar for Academic Year 2025-2026.

Sottile is a senior majoring in Mathematics Education.

The Dr. Gerry & Phyllis Church Scholarship has been generously endowed by Dr. Gerald “Gerry” Church of Mustang and represents SWOSU’s first-ever endowed scholarship created to benefit the SWOSU Department of Mathematics.

Church is a native of Dighton, Kansas. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Kansas State University and a Master of Arts from Arizona State University. He completed his education from Oklahoma State University with a Doctor of Education in 1973. Church served as a professor of mathematics at SWOSU from 1966 to 2000. Church now resides in Mustang, Oklahoma. Church and his late wife, Phyllis, enjoyed country and western dancing and traveling into retirement.

The Dr. Gerry and Phyllis Church Endowed Scholarship Fund is stewarded by the SWOSU Foundation, Inc. The Foundation was established in 1977 to raise, administer, and disburse private funding in support of the activities and programs of SWOSU. For more information, please contact 580-774-3267 or visit www.SWOSUFoundation.com.

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