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When Shannen Oversby’s mobile rang at the Taylor Street Tea Rooms in Esperance where she was waitressing last summer, the then 17-year-old had no idea it was a call that would transform her life, reports Sally-Ann Jones.

Because she was busy with crowds of hungry tourists, Shannen didn’t answer her phone straight away: she had to wait several hours until her shift had finished. Only when she was walking home did she ring the unfamiliar number left in her message bank to find that she’d won a prestigious scholarship to The University of Western Australia. It would enable her to fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor and work in a rural community where general practitioners are desperately needed.

The inaugural John Jackson scholarship is a bequest that was established by the late Emeritus Professor Jackson. His friends, Dr Debora Campbell, Christine Gammon and Ann Tonks, are the scholarship trustees and they worked with UWA to establish the scholarship. During his last illness, Professor Jackson organised the scholarship to benefit disadvantaged students.

Dean of Economics and Commerce at UWA during the 1980s, Professor Jackson was widely respected for his ability to make economics accessible and relevant. Many of his former students include people who are now prominent in WA business and politics.

Professor Jackson moved to Melbourne as Dean of Business at RMIT in 1991. His friends remember him as a passionate music lover and supporter of the arts, as well as the author of some of the most successful Australian books on economics. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2005 and died, aged 60, the following year.

Shannen said without the scholarship, she would have had to take a ‘gap year’ and continue working in the tea rooms, and then work almost full-time to support herself and pay rent during her university studies.

“I’m so grateful to Professor Jackson and the trustees for their faith in me,” she said. “I won’t let them down. It might sound corny, but I do want to help people and make a difference.”

Christine Gammon said Professor Jackson had created the scholarship to ensure each recipient (there is another scholarship winner at RMIT) was able to study without being hindered by external pressures.

“He was a wonderful man and he would have been delighted to meet you,” Ms Gammon told Shannen.

Shannen, who was born in Esperance, was a pupil at Star of the Sea Primary School and then Esperance Senior High School. When she was in Year 12, she attended an information day about studying Medicine at UWA and knew it was the career for her.

She is now on an assured pathway to Medicine, undertaking public health and physiology units this semester while living at St Thomas More College. She is very much enjoying meeting new friends, many of whom are doing the same units as her. Her father, Graeme, is a train driver who transports freight from Esperance to Kalgoorlie and her mother, Julie, is a teacher’s assistant. Her sister, Natasha (20) is studying nursing and midwifery at Curtin University.

“Out of our whole family, only Natasha and I are interested in health,” Shannen said. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity the John Jackson scholarship has given me.”

Anne Liddle, the Manager, Planned Giving, manages all bequests to UWA. The John Jackson Undergraduate scholarship is an example of how the foresight of one individual and their bequest can make such a positive difference to a student’s current and future life, Ms Liddle said.

“It is very satisfying to work closely with those who include UWA in their wills and to see the great benefit that this avenue of philanthropy has to students, the University and ultimately the wider community.”

Published in Uniview Vol. 31 No. 3 Spring 2012