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Couple gives Ashlanders access to Ivy League (Richard & Nancy Esbenshade Scholarship)

Richard D. Esbenshade graduated from Ashland High School in 1946 and attended Stanford University with the aid of a scholarship provided by the Pepsi Cola Company. After graduation, he spent two years in the United States Army during the Korean War. He then attended Harvard Law School on the GI Bill, receiving an LLB magna cum laude in 1956.

Nancy Esbenshade attended high school in Lima, Ohio and graduated from Northwestern University. She obtained a masters degree in psychiatric social work at Simmons School of Social Work in Boston.

They were married in 1958 and moved to Los Angeles, where they raised five children and where Richard practiced law for more than 50 years.

They created a scholarship to help graduating seniors of Ashland High School who have been accepted to and are attending one of the following institutions: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Stanford, Northwestern or Williams.