The Gentlemen Leadership Society (GLS) is pleased to announce the launch of a new KSU Foundation fund supporting a GLS scholarship. The fund is known as the GLS Bradley C. Heka Scholarship. The fund is established by the Heyka family: Larry Heyka & Elizabeth Blakely (Brad’s father & mother) and Megan Schrader (Brad’s sister), and honors the memory of Brad Heyka KSU ‘95. The GLS Bradley C. Heyka Scholarship is structured similar to other GLS Scholarships: $5,000 annual award to K-State undergraduates, renewable up to 4 years. Preference will be given to incoming freshmen enrolled in the College of Business Administration who have displayed extraordinary leadership as high school students. The first GLS Bradley C. Heyka Scholarship will be available for the 2026-27 academic year.

In December, 2000 Brad Heyka died as the result of a violent crime that also took the lives of three friends. Following his death the Heyka family established three non-renewable (annual) scholarships benefitting K-State students. The GLS Bradley C. Heyka Scholarship will compliment these scholarships with a renewable (multi-year) feature that will follow the student through their college career. “Our family believes the GLS mission will perfectly align with the college experience Brad so valued as a student/alumnus of K-State”, noted Schrader.

The GLS Bradley C. Heyka Scholarship marks the sixth KSU Foundation fund supporting GLS scholarships, and long-term goal placing GLS among the premier merit based renewable scholarship programs for future K-State students.