Erin Bunch is a counselor at OCHS and works with students last names A-L, grades 9-12. (Submitted Photo)
For decades, Patti Paradise Escoe was more than a teacher. She was a mentor, problem-solver, and for many students, a steady source of support.
Now, her family is ensuring that impact continues.
Following Escoe’s death on March 30 at the age of 69, her family has established a $500 scholarship for Oglethorpe County High School seniors involved in HOSA, the school’s health occupations program she helped build.
The first Pattie Paradise Escoe HOSA Scholarship will be awarded during OCHS Senior Honors Night on May 11, when the school recognizes graduating seniors, scholarship recipients and top academic honors.
The inaugural scholarship is funded through a donation from Athena Business Systems in Athens, where her husband Marcus works.
The idea came as the family searched for a meaningful way to use the donation and reflect Escoe’s lifelong commitment to students. That’s when the stories came pouring in.
“Hearing it from students that she taught … it just was amazing,” said her daughter, Marci Escoe, recalling the outpouring of messages from former students. “It was just literally hundreds of stories on Facebook. I knew her students loved her. She loved what she did, and they loved her.”
Those stories paint a clear picture of who Escoe was, not just an educator, but someone who invested deeply in her students’ lives.
“She wasn’t just a teacher — she was a mentor, a safe place, a constant and someone who truly loved her students like her own,” one former student said in a Facebook post. “My heart is completely broken, but I feel so incredibly grateful to have been loved, guided and believed in by her. I will carry her lessons, her voice and her impact with me for the rest of my life.”
Escoe, an Oglethorpe County native and nurse by training, returned to her alma mater to begin teaching health occupations at OCHS in the 1980s, helping launch the program and introduce students to careers in healthcare. When the program was cut due to funding, she continued her work in Greene County, teaching for more than 30 years and influencing generations of students.
Her care for students extended well beyond the classroom.
“If they needed food, she’d take them extra food from her lunch,” Marci Escoe said. “If they needed clothes, she would take them. She was always their safe place.”
That compassion is what the family hopes to carry forward through the scholarship, which they plan to continue funding annually.
“We just want to give them a jump start,” Marci said. “We just want to give an opportunity to, in her honor, provide a little bit of money to get started for college, whether it goes to books, whether it goes to get your apartment ready, whatever the case may be, but just towards starting your career and the next step after high school.”
The scholarship is open to graduating seniors involved in HOSA who plan to pursue a career in healthcare, a path Escoe championed throughout her career.
“Mom was all about kids going to college or trying to further their education,” Marci said.
For the family, connecting the scholarship to OCHS holds special meaning. In 2015, the HOSA program returned to the school, with teacher Erin Bunch, a relative of the Escoe family, helping lead its revival.
Bunch is now a counselor at OCHS, and nurse Kelly Mathews oversees the program, bringing Escoe’s early work full circle.
“I can’t think of any better way really to carry on the legacy of someone than to give back to what they poured so much of their life into,” Bunch said.
For those closest to Patti, the scholarship reflects the life she lived, one centered on caring for others and helping students succeed.
“She was just so supportive and always willing to just help anybody that came into her life and needed it,” Marci said.