Through the two scholarships they’ve set up at the College of Business, Jack and Tonia Queen hope to support hardworking, ambitious business students — students much like themselves more than 50 years ago.

The Queens support up to four students each year through the Jack and Tonia Queen Business Scholarship, which was launched in 2016. The scholarship pays for half of each student’s tuition and fees as well as the College’s differential, beginning in their sophomore year.

“We give only half tuition so that the recipient still has to work to pay for the rest — so that they have an investment in their education,” Tonia Queen said.

The scholarship is awarded to first-generation Coloradans, with preference given to students from Northeastern Colorado or a rural community. That’s a nod to Jack Queen’s upbringing in Brush, a small town just east of Fort Morgan.

The second scholarship, the Tonia and Jack Queen DVM/MBA Student Scholarship, was inspired by Tonia Queen’s love of dogs, including the couple’s cavalier King Charles spaniel, Snickers. It was launched in 2022, and the first year’s funding was distributed between all five students in CSU’s combined Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program.

“I thought the program was a pretty neat idea, because so many vet students graduate from a veterinary school but haven’t acquired business skills to run an office,” Tonia Queen said.

The Queens enjoy meeting with the scholarship recipients and exchanging emails with them, learning about each recipient’s academic goals and how their studies are going.

“Usually, they write us a letter telling us who they are and what their aspirations are,” Jack Queen said. “Then, the next time we get up to Fort Collins, we try to arrange to meet with them face to face.”

They still remember each recipient, all the way back to the first person selected to receive the Jack and Tonia Queen Business Scholarship.

“We gave her our email, and we stayed in touch,” Tonia Queen said. “We’d ask her to just let us know how each semester went, so she’d write us, and we’d write back.”

Finding love in an accounting class

Jack and Tonia Queen got to know each other in an accounting class that met every Tuesday and Thursday from 7-9 p.m. Tonia Queen was a sophomore working toward an associate’s degree in secretarial science, and Jack Queen was a junior studying finance and real estate.

He offered to help her with her accounting homework, and the rest was history. Tonia Queen graduated with her associate’s degree while Jack Queen continued on with his studies. Then, over the course of just one week in 1971, they got married and Jack Queen graduated with his bachelor’s degree and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force.

After several years stationed in Omaha, Neb., Jack Queen was sent by the Air Force on a one year-remote assignment to Greenland. It was the perfect opportunity for Tonia Queen to return to school, so she moved back to Fort Collins and completed her bachelor’s degree in business education in just a year and a half.

“I decided that I wanted to get my bachelor’s degree – that I wanted to teach instead of being a secretary,” Tonia Queen said. “At first, I didn’t want to teach, because my dad was a teacher, and I saw how hard he had to work to be a really good teacher. But I decided, ‘No, I think I’d like to do that.’”

She taught high school for many years – following Jack Queen through several moves as he advanced in his military career – before getting her master’s degree in management information systems from George Mason University in Virginia. Then, she spent three years working as a programmer analyst before the couple moved to Colorado Springs, where she took a job teaching at the collegiate level at Denver Technical College, which was later bought out by DeVry University. She retired as academic dean for the Colorado Springs campus.

Jack Queen earned a master’s degree in logistics management from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio.

“We moved around, and I had many different jobs, never a typical supply job,” Jack Queen said, describing his career. “It was all unique positions.”

He served for more than 27 years in professional and executive logistics management and planning positions involving administration, budgeting, supply, contracting, operations and maintenance, planning and programming, and space operations. He worked in numerous diverse organizations from group to headquarters Air Force level, ranging in size from 3 to more than 3,000 and with annual budgets of up to $350 million. He retired as a colonel and director of supply, providing logistics management for Air Force Space Command units.

“Then, for four years, he tried to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up,” Tonia Queen joked. “He started working as a defense contractor supporting U.S. Northern Command following the attacks on Sept. 11.” Jack Queen worked for many years as a national special security specialist until retiring again in 2015.

Giving students the gift of ‘freedom and time’

Since the Queens launched their scholarships, the couple has helped 13 students achieve their dreams of higher education.

The newly launched Tonia and Jack Queen DVM/MBA Student Scholarship was awarded to all five students this year.

One of those students was Ravi Tatineni. Originally from Katuru, a small village in India, he moved to Michigan when he was six and earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan. When he decided to get his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, he chose CSU because he was interested in getting his Master of Business Administration at the same time.

“While pursuing my doctorate, I wanted the ability to learn and integrate business skills while in the program,” Tatineni said. “Although I have had some previous experience in business (via my career in management consulting), I love having the opportunity to learn more hard/soft skills through a formal MBA education.”

The Tonia and Jack Queen DVM/MBA Student Scholarship will allow him to pursue his passions without worrying about student debt.

“As I’m sure many already know, pursuing two degrees (one being a doctorate) can be very expensive, and taking on debt early on in a career can be intimidating,” he said. “This scholarship is impactful because it gives me more freedom to explore my passions in school. In school, I am constantly thinking about ways to reduce my future debt: working jobs that may not necessarily push toward my long-term professional goals, scholarships or otherwise.

“This scholarship allows me the freedom and time to carefully pursue employment to gain skills that will help further my career and pursue unpaid volunteer opportunities to get my foot in the door for certain realms of veterinary medicine (i.e., exploring exotics/wildlife/zoo medicine).”

The Jack and Tonia Queen Business Scholarship has been awarded to eight students so far. This year, Ariadne Estrada was the sole recipient.

As the first in her family to attend college, Estrada was concerned that financial barriers would keep her from fulfilling her dreams of higher education and career success. She grew up in Yuma, a small community in eastern Colorado, and she was drawn to CSU in part because of the resources the university offers to first-generation students.

The scholarship helps cover Estrada’s tuition costs, making her education at the College of Business possible.

“Scholarships impact my CSU experience by letting me do what I dreamt of doing as a high school student pursuing to go to college,” Estrada said. “I know it would have been a struggle for my mom to cover for my tuition if I had not had the sufficient scholarships funds to cover most of it. As I continue my academic career, I will continue to strive applying for scholarships so that it’s not a financial barrier to continuing my higher education nor a worry my mother would have to go through.”