The Richard D. Raymond Scholarship Endowment Fund will support graduate history students with a demonstrated interest in Abraham Lincoln. Raymond created the first scholarship for the Center. “Abraham Lincoln's is a great American tale,” he says. “Lincoln rose from a log cabin to a pleasant home on a street of doctors and lawyers in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Springfield. Then he became President, and overnight he had to deal with that great international issue—slavery. After the war, instead of trying to subdue the conquered, he had a statesman's plan for reconstruction of the Union. For these reasons, I believe his life is worthy of study and emulation.”