Michael Pulley

Michael Pulley found a way to impact OTC students long after his retirement. Thanks to earnings from his latest writing project, the former OTC English instructor endowed the Michael Pulley Scholarship Fund through the OTC Foundation. The scholarship will support current OTC students who plan to transfer to a four-year university to earn a bachelor’s degree in English.

“I’m very happy to establish this fund through the OTC Foundation,” he said. “It’s something I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do.”

Michael was one of the first instructors hired by the college in the early ‘90s, and he taught for the next 26 years until his retirement in 2016. Besides his work at OTC, Michael wrote several novels, short stories and a memoir. He also contributed to a bi-monthly opinion column in the Springfield News-Leader.

During his first years teaching at the college, a local plant closed down, displacing hundreds of workers. Many of these individuals made the decision to continue their education at OTC. As a result, Michael quickly grew fond of the nontraditional students in his classes.

“I liked older students who needed to get their lives on track and knew that coming to college was a way to do that,” he recalled. “They were very serious about their education, and that dedication had a lasting effect on me.”