{"id":38381,"date":"2015-10-01T10:14:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T14:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=38381"},"modified":"2015-12-11T10:43:13","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T15:43:13","slug":"hungarian-hurricane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2015\/10\/01\/hungarian-hurricane\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungarian hurricane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bela<\/a>

Retired social work professor Bela Bognar was honored by his native Hungary for raising scholarship money for Hungarian students. (Photo by Will Jones)<\/p><\/div>\n

Retired Wright State University professor Bela Bognar, who has worked tirelessly over the years to raise scholarship money for Hungarian students, has received the Knight\u2019s Cross of the Order of Merit, one of Hungary\u2019s highest state honors.<\/p>\n

The award is bestowed upon academics, writers, poets and scientists who contribute the most to advance Hungarian causes. Bognar\u2019s award medal was picked up in Budapest, Hungary, in August by his nephew.<\/p>\n

Bognar taught social work<\/a> at Wright State for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2002. During his career, he raised money for Hungarian students, churches, boarding schools and agencies that help abuse victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote letters to all of the people who donated money for the scholarship fund over the years and said, \u2018This award is yours. Without you, I couldn\u2019t have gotten it,\u2019\u201d Bognar said.<\/p>\n

Bognar was born in Hungary and lived through the Soviet occupation of the 1940s and ’50s, when the Soviets confiscated his family\u2019s 10-acre farm. He was an active participant in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a spontaneous nationwide revolt against Soviet-imposed policies.<\/p>\n

Bognar was with a group of university students who confiscated arms from an army weapons warehouse and took part in 10 days of bloody, block-to-block street fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe saddest part was that I witnessed young people killed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite its failure, the uprising was highly influential and foreshadowed the downfall of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

After the revolution, Bognar left Hungary for Belgium and later emigrated to the United States.<\/p>\n

He attended the University of Wisconsin, where he obtained master\u2019s and doctorate degrees in social work, gerontology, health and mental health policies. Bognar taught a generation of professionals who worked in the field of aging. He wrote four textbooks and countless articles on health and aging policies.<\/p>\n

The 85-year-old Bognar, who lives in a 150-year-old schoolhouse in rural Miami County, says people are generally afraid of growing old and the physical miseries that can come with it. He says family and community support is a huge comfort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is that chronic illness is bugging the hell out of us,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to live with it and preoccupy your mind with something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bognar started the Hungarian Scholarship Fund in 1998 after he and his wife, April, received a compelling letter from an Hungarian student in Transylvania who needed $950 to attend a teachers\u2019 college in Hungary.<\/p>\n

It was later renamed the Dr. Bela J. Bognar Hungarian Scholarship and is for students of Hungarian origin who attend Wright State. To date, $25,365 has been given to 47 students.<\/p>\n

Michelle Streeter-Ferrari, director of Wright State\u2019s University Center for International Education<\/a>\u00a0(UCIE), said the scholarships support Wright State\u2019s mission of creating an inclusive and diverse campus that includes students from around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cUCIE is thrilled to have been part of an effort to recognize those students of former immigrants who have helped make our region stronger,” she said.<\/p>\n

In 1999, a separate Bognar Family Scholarship Fund was established by the Bognars. It provides monthly financial assistance to qualified university students of Hungarian origin studying in Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbi and the United States.<\/p>\n

Since its inception, more than $500,000 has been raised from members of the Hungarian-American community, churches, organizations and the Sunshine Lady Foundation, directed by Doris Buffett. As of June 2013, the fund had awarded scholarships to 152 students \u2014 14 of whom had earned doctorates or degrees in medicine and law.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s Bognar going to do with his new medal?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll probably store it in the garage with my other awards,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retired social work professor Bela Bognar was honored by his native Hungary for raising scholarship money for Hungarian students. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":38383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2023,2040,725,2046,747,715,2089,2113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-faculty","category-giving","category-home-news-sidebar","category-international-students","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-work","category-university-center-for-international-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38381"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38386,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38381\/revisions\/38386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}