2024 scholarship applicatION
Submissions are now being accepted from students of bluegrass music seeking to apply for the Steve Gulley Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship honors the late singer-songwriter who gave so much to bluegrass music during his lifetime. The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to a college student who best represents the future of bluegrass music.
The deadline to apply for the scholarship is May 15, 2024.
The winner will be announced at the world-famous Station Inn in Nashville during a special show on August 21, 2024. This year is the second for the scholarship.
Last year’s winner was fiddler Maddie Murray, a University of Kentucky student from Clay City, Kentucky.
Steve Gulley was widely embraced and admired by the bluegrass community. He worked with Kentucky’s Renfro Valley Barn Dance and was a member of groups such as Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Mountain Heart, Grasstowne, and Steve Gulley & New Pinnacle. He passed away from cancer in 2020.
The scholarship was founded in 2023 by Crandall Creek, a West Virginia-based bluegrass band. The scholarship is administered through the band’s affiliated non-profit, the Bluegrass Music Endeavors Foundation.
Send questions and inquiries regarding the Steve Gulley Memorial Scholarship to gulleyscholarhship@gmail.com.
2023 WINNER - MADDIE MURRAY
CRANDALL CREEK GIVES BACK
Crandall Creek believes the community that supports them deserves support in return.
Band members give part of what they earn to the Bluegrass Music Endeavors Foundation, a 501c3 set up by Crandall Creek founder Jerry Andrews.
The band has raised funds for such deserving charities as St. Jude’s Children’s Research, Miracles Happen and Helping Heroes veterans’ group. Crandall Creek also collected thousands of non-perishable food items through its concerts.
Steve Gulley Memorial Scholarship Winner
Nashville, Tenn. (August 9, 2023) -- The future of bluegrass got brighter for a Kentucky fiddler who won the $5,000 Steve Gulley Memorial Scholarship.
“Oh my gosh, that is so awesome,” Madeline “Maddie” Murray, a University of Kentucky sophomore, said when told she received the honor. “I don’t know if my heart can take much more.”
The Steve Gulley Memorial Scholarship honors a singer and songwriter who gave so much to bluegrass music during his lifetime. He passed away from cancer in 2020. The $5,000 scholarship is awarded to a student who best represents the future of bluegrass music. The scholarship is administered through Crandall Creek's affiliated non-profit, the Bluegrass Music Endeavors Foundation.
Blue Highway’s Tim Stafford announced the scholarship winner during Crandall Creek’s show at the world-famous Station Inn on August 8, 2023. Maddie was there and sat in for a song with Crandall Creek.
“Although I never got the amazing privilege of meeting Steve Gulley, I would like to continue to honor his bluegrass memory and legacy through this scholarship with my bluegrass music,” Maddie said. “I’ve had the honor of hearing Steve Gulley’s stories through many amazing bluegrass musicians who got to work with him over the years and knowing him through the memories he’s stamped on others’ hearts.”
Maddie, from Lexington, Kentucky, studies clinical leadership and management at the UK College of Health Sciences. She said the scholarship will help her pursue her career in the health field and her passion for bluegrass music.
She began learning classical violin at the age of 7. A chance encounter seven years later opened Maddie to bluegrass when a band that was playing stopped her on the street. They asked Maddie what was in the case on her back.
“I told them I had a violin with me,” Maddie recalled. “They responded that it was a fiddle and asked me if I wanted to pick with them.”
While Maddie says she is looking forward to a career in health, bluegrass will always be part of her life. “The fiddle has become a part of me.”