![\"MirrorImage\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/04\/MirrorImage.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGoing away to college wasn\u2019t an option for Brenda (Greenwood McNally) Litscher \u201989<\/b>, but she found a great fit right in her hometown.<\/p>\n
When it was time for her son, Patrick McNally<\/b>, to find a college, the possibilities seemed endless. Taking after his mother, McNally was an outstanding high school student with a broad range of interests, from vice president of student council to playing on the baseball team.<\/p>\n
Litscher wanted her son to make his own choice. Yet before he got too far down the road of making campus visits and filling out applications, she suggested, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we look at Winona State?\u201d After all, her hometown college had been right for her.<\/p>\n
Winona State proved to be the perfect fit for McNally, too. After his first campus visit he thought, \u201cMaybe I don\u2019t need to look any further.\u201d A second visit convinced him, \u201cOh yeah, I\u2019m committing to this place.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNally is now in the middle of a successful freshman year, despite undergoing an emergency appendectomy at the end of his fall semester (he still managed to take all of his final exams).<\/p>\n
There are more parallels between the experiences of McNally and Litscher than simply attending \u2013 and excelling at \u2013 the same university.<\/p>\n
Litscher majored in finance with a minor in economics. McNally, who was set on a career as a chiropractor while growing up, decided during his junior year of high school to go into finance. Like his mother, he\u2019s also minoring in economics.<\/p>\n
While Litscher\u2019s parents were supportive of her plans to attend college, she worked three jobs to pay for her education. McNally is similarly hardworking, clocking 30-plus hours a week as a manager of the local McDonald\u2019s. Litscher was the first in her family to earn a degree from a four-year university. McNally will be the first on his father\u2019s side of the family to receive a four-year degree.<\/p>\n
They also share one more distinction:\u00a0 the Winona State University Foundation Scholarship.<\/p>\n
Litscher was the first awardee of the WSU Foundation Scholarship in 1985. \u201cIt made a huge difference in my ability to attend and graduate from Winona State,\u201d says Litscher.<\/p>\n
When it became clear that McNally would also attend Winona State, Litscher pushed her son to apply for every scholarship that was available, including the Foundation Scholarship. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize it was the same scholarship she had received when she was at WSU,\u201d says McNally. \u201cOr that she had been the first recipient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Time did break a few of the parallel threads in their stories, however. Litscher completed her scholarship applications on a typewriter. McNally submitted most of his online. Litscher\u2019s award from the Foundation totaled about $3,600. Reflecting the rising costs of a college education, McNally is receiving $16,000 through his scholarship.<\/p>\n
Litscher pushed herself to earn good grades while a student at Winona State. She describes her first class as a finance major, when she and a couple of fellow students built a presentation using an early personal computer. Economics professor Matt Hyle remembered that presentation when he met Litscher and McNally while they were visiting campus. \u201cThat opened my eyes,\u201d says McNally.<\/p>\n
After graduating from Winona State, Litscher started her career at Benchmark Electronics in Winona, where she is now senior account manager. She enjoys her job, but says she could see herself working as a financial advisor, helping people with some of life\u2019s most important decisions.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that McNally also has his sights set on a career as a financial advisor. \u201cI think of people like my grandparents, who have worked so hard, and helping them plan their saving and investments so they can enjoy life when they retire,\u201d explains McNally.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that Litscher is proud of her son\u2019s accomplishments and delighted that he is following her example. When McNally wrote about the person he admired most for his Foundation Scholarship application essay, the subject was his mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe and I are so similar,\u201d says McNally. \u201cShe worked so hard for it and pushed me to work hard. I\u2019m very thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Son\u2019s experiences at Winona State reflect those of his mother\u2019s, 24 years earlier \u00a0 Going away to college wasn\u2019t an option for Brenda (Greenwood McNally) Litscher \u201989, but she found a great fit right in her hometown. When it was time for her son, Patrick McNally, to find a college, the possibilities seemed endless. Taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,2],"tags":[61,62,7,8],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-wsu-magazine","tag-brenda-litscher","tag-patrick-mcnalley","tag-winona-state-university","tag-wsu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/04\/MirrorImage.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PQMT-3I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}