Donna and Jean Creek Scholarship in Voice
Donna Creek was born in 1929 and an Indiana native born in Sandborn. She graduated from Vincennes University with a degree in Nursing in 1951 and worked as a staff nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital, Methodist Hospital, the IU Medical Center, and Burbank Hospital in Massachusetts. Donna Creek cared greatly for her community and used her skills as a nurse to benefit those around her. She was an avid volunteer for the Planned Parenthood Association, and a volunteer nurse for the Bloomington chapter of the American Red Cross. Creek served the Jacobs School of Music as a board member of Friends of Music.
Jean Creek also worked in the medical field. He earned his medical degree from IU in 1952, the same year he married Donna. His interest in becoming a physician was piqued when as a 9-year-old, he watched IU medical students dissecting cadavers through the basement windows of Owen Hall. One of Creek's friends and patients was Herman B. Wells. He also served as the team doctor for the IU football and men's basketball teams. His relationship with IU goes deeper as he served as a clinical professor of medicine for the IU School of Medicine's Bloomington program. Creek is also a co-founder of Internal Medicine Associates, now Premier Healthcare, which is the largest physician-led, multi-specialty provider in Southern Indiana.
Along with establishing scholarships for medical students at IU, the Creeks have generously established scholarships for Jacobs School of Music students. Jean Creek still plays his trumpet, reminiscing of his past when he would gig in Evansville as a high school student—"I had a seven-night-a-week job playing in a dance band in one of those dumps outside of Evansville. It was a dump, but it paid well. I made more money than my dad did teaching school."
The Donna and Jean Creek Scholarship generously supports incoming freshman undergraduates majoring in voice at the Jacobs School of Music.