{"id":196,"date":"2015-05-12T10:45:33","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/?p=196"},"modified":"2025-03-03T14:56:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T22:56:02","slug":"your-gifts-in-action-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/2015\/05\/12\/your-gifts-in-action-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporter Profile: Shawn and Heather Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring\/Summer Issue 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

by Marcia Hill Gossard \u201999, \u201904 Ph.D.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like a lot of little kids growing up in southwest Idaho, Shawn Sanders (\u201909 DVM) dreamed of being a cowboy on a ranch. By junior high, he knew he wanted to be a veterinarian. After earning his undergraduate degree, WSU\u2019s College of Veterinary Medicine seemed like the perfect place to study large animal medicine and earn a DVM.<\/p>\n

Growing up, Sanders said his family didn\u2019t have much. Drive and determination to make a better life for his family led him not only to WSU, but to working part-time, and sometimes full time, all the way through school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times when I had three or four jobs,\u201d says Sanders. \u201cWhen one didn\u2019t have enough hours, I\u2019d pick up more from another.\u201d While a DVM student, he worked in various labs cleaning dishes, working with horses, goat and lamb herds, or thoroughbred horses and running them on treadmills. His titles included Farm Animal Tech, Equine Reproduction Manager, and Research Assistant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to pay our way through school,\u201d says Sanders. \u201cWith a family, that was a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sanders started veterinary school in 2005, he and his wife Heather, who were married in 2003, had a 9-month-old baby. \u201cWe had three children by the time I graduated,\u201d says Sanders. Today they have 5 children, three girls and two boys.<\/p>\n

Sanders owns a mixed animal clinic in Laramie, Wyoming, which he purchased in 2012, just three years after graduation. \u201cThe banks were hesitant at first because I\u2019d only been out of school a short time,\u201d says Sanders. \u201cBut it has been going really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

So in 2014, after years thinking about how they could help, he and his wife started the Shawn and Heather Sanders Support the Family Scholarship<\/em>. They created it not long after he had read a story about a fellow WSU alumnus, Aaron Gibbons (\u201911 DVM), who had also funded a scholarship.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had been thinking about starting a scholarship since I was a student,\u201d says Sanders. \u201cWhat kick-started it for us was seeing Aaron\u2019s story. We decided now was the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having received the Ernie & Beryl Stowe Large Animal Scholarship<\/em>, the Dr. Jay Newhall Scholarship<\/em>, and the Dr. & Mrs. E. Doyle Montgomery Scholarship<\/em> as a student, Sanders knew what a big difference those scholarships made for him and his family. He wanted to pass that help on to other families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew quite a few families while I was a student,\u201d says Sanders. \u201cI knew how much more of a challenge it was having to struggle to make ends meet. We wanted to help those paying their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving back is second nature to Sanders. As a kid he was active in 4H and FFA, or Future Farmers of America. Today he supports his local 4H program and they are active members in their community. They plan to continue adding to the scholarship to help even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs our business grows, we would like to increase the scholarship,\u201d says Sanders, who hopes that scholarship recipients who buy their own practices will also give back when their businesses do well. \u201cHopefully our story will encourage other to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The Shawn and Heather Sanders Support the Family Scholarship is awarded to first, second, third, or fourth year DVM students at WSU with family obligations, interest in mixed or large animal medicine, and gainfully employed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a lot of little kids growing up in southwest Idaho, Shawn Sanders (\u201909 DVM) dreamed of being a cowboy on a ranch. By junior high, he knew he wanted to be a veterinarian. After earning his undergraduate degree, WSU\u2019s College of Veterinary Medicine seemed like the perfect place to study large animal medicine and earn a DVM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1015,"featured_media":941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[514],"tags":[619,540,614],"wsuwp_university_location":[332],"wsuwp_university_org":[425],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4103,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/4103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}