This scholarship, which was fully endowed as of 2014, is specifically designated for law students who desire to focus their practice on assisting the growing aging population with end-of-life matters. There is a serious challenge responding to the need of this critical area of law to educate and mentor law students. The field of elder law is poised to play a key role as the elderly population rapidly increases.

LeRoy Y. Hooks devoted his professional career to education and his personal life to continually helping others. For nearly 50 years, he worked as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in the Kentucky and Illinois school systems. Beyond retirement, he continued to be active in the Illinois Principal's Association, Illinois State Board of Education Screening Committee, and the Sauk Valley Foundation Board, evidencing the importance that education played in his life. He battled the terminal disease of ALS for the last 18 months of his life with faith, strength and dignity. It is for these reasons that his family has established the LeRoy Y. Hooks Elder Law Scholarship to assist Stetson University College of Law students concentrating in the Elder Law area who desire to focus their careers on assisting the growing aging population with end-of-life issues as the need grows for schools to educate and mentor law students in this critical area of the law.