Moyer Scholarship will benefit students with financial need
September 22, 2025 — Anne Stein Velma ’84 still recalls what it was like to walk into professor Wayne Moyer’s office in the early 1980s.
“He was always writing and researching and there would be stacks of books, papers, and notebooks covering his desk,” Velma says. “He did so much reading and preparation for every class.”
Moyer, who now is a political science senior faculty member, was the advisor for Velma and her older brother, David Stein ’76. The two took numerous courses taught by Moyer.
Anne Stein Velma ’84 and Otis Velma are pictured during a 2019 Grinnell College campaign event in Chicago.
“I’m a big Wayne Moyer fan. He was always enthusiastic and had a great sense of humor inside and outside the classroom,” Velma says. “He’s very detailed and has lots of great stories. He is always willing to give 100 percent of his time and effort to students, encouraging them to meet with him before or after class.”
When Anne and her husband, Otis Velma, started discussing a planned gift for student financial aid to Grinnell College, it became obvious what to call it – the H. Wayne Moyer Endowed Scholarship Fund. The scholarship honors a professor who has made a lasting difference in many lives while helping ensure that students who’ve been accepted to the College, regardless of their financial background, will have access to all the benefits of the Grinnell experience.
“I want to encourage anybody – no matter what their financial circumstances are – to feel free to check out Grinnell because it was such an amazing place for me and for my brother, and we still have strong attachments to the College,” Anne says. “I want other people to have that opportunity, too.”
As Chicago natives, Anne and Otis especially hope Chicago area students will consider Grinnell. Anne’s family spent years in the Hyde Park neighborhood, while Otis was raised on the city’s west side. They now live in Evanston.
“I moved around a little bit, but we both feel pretty attached to Chicago,” Anne said. “We love the city. We love the people here. The idea of potentially helping local kids is appealing.”
Otis is a retired Evanston police officer. He and Anne now teach Zen-based mixed martial arts and personal safety training at Zendou Mixed Martial Arts. The couple came to Grinnell in 2023 to provide training courses. Otis has gotten to know Wayne on their trips back to campus.
“After serving in the Marine Corps for four years, I came home and eventually applied to the police department,” Otis says. “I loved what I was doing and got really good at it. I was an investigator [homicide, juvenile, and adult] for almost 25 years. Now this is year three of retirement and there’s nothing like it. That was quite a ride and a lot of excitement. So, it’s really nice now to just be a normal everyday citizen with an average stress life.”
Anne co-hosted a summer picnic in Evanston, Illinois, on Aug. 3. She is a co-coordinator for the Grinnell-in-Chicago Regional Network.
After Grinnell, Anne said she wanted to get into politics, but behind the scenes. “I loved writing, loved research, and I wanted to do something useful for society.”
A week after graduation, she moved to Northern California and met bike racers who had raced with Greg LeMond, the first American to win the Tour de France. “I fell in love with bike racing, and I did that for five years. Then that kind of ran its course, so I went to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.”
She went on to work for a daily newspaper in Palo Alto, California, a sports magazine in Boulder, Colorado, and then eventually came back to Chicago and started freelance writing.
Anne’s articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, LA Times, MSNBC, ESPN, People, the Christian Science Monitor as well as the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks game programs. She also has written articles for many Grinnell College publications over the past several years.
Anne is a longtime volunteer for Grinnell. She serves on the Alumni Council and is a co-coordinator for the Grinnell-in-Chicago Regional Network. Previously, she served as a class agent and on a few Reunion committees.
“I like organizing events,” she says. “I did that in Denver for a few years and then back here in Chicago. It’s been really fun. You bump into all sorts of people. At the Evanston picnic this summer, for example, we had alums in their 80s and students who are just about to enter Grinnell.”
Planning programs to bring Grinnellians together has always important to Anne. As a student, she was a Grinnell Relays chairperson, which was another opportunity to work with Moyer who helped found the event. Moyer taught for 52 years at Grinnell and headed the Rosenfield Program for 23 years.
When Moyer decided he was entering senior faculty status last year, Anne wrote about his five-year plans and collected memories about him from generations of Grinnellians.
“I don’t think he’ll ever really retire,” she says. “I think he really thrives on contact with all those students. He really loves teaching. He made our college experience so memorable.”
—by Jeremy Shapiro
For your information:
Since Wayne Moyer made a lasting difference in so many lives, multiple alums have set up ways to honor his teaching career and legacy. For information about giving in honor of Moyer, contact Buddy Boulton, director of planned giving, at 641-269-3248 at boultonb@grinnell.edu.
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