Keith Baim Excellence in Guitar Composition Endowment

This scholarship will provide support to students who play the guitar and compose music demonstrating outstanding instrumentation, conveyance and depth of emotion, immersion of the listener experience, and/or general artistry.

If you do not meet all of these requirements in a given term, you may lose your scholarship eligibility and your scholarship may be canceled.

Requirements:

• Recipient(s) must be a junior, senior, or graduate student.
• Recipient(s) must be pursuing one of the following majors:
  o Music
  o Music composition
  o Jazz studies
  o Music education
  o Music performance
  OR participate in one or more of the following:
  o Perform in an SDSU ensemble
  o Participate in at least one SDSU guitar course
• Recipient(s) must play the guitar and compose music for the guitar.
• Recipient(s) may be contacted by the committee at a later date to ask if they would like to share their video with the donor.
• Graduate students are not required to be enrolled full-time.
• Undergraduate students are not required to be enrolled full-time.

Donor Profile:

I’m very proud to have started this endowment. I’d like to imagine a world without cancer. It took my best friend Joe when we were both only 21, and 36 years later, it took my lifelong best friend Ed Davis.

I met Ed at the SDSU College of Business Administration [now the Fowler College of Business], just six months after Joe passed. I was grateful from that moment on to have found my best friend for 35 years — long before Ed’s cancer, but also all during it. Through camping trips and ball games, and also through surgeries and chemo. From cheering wildly for the Aztecs, to sitting quietly at his bedside in the hospital. A friendship that shared dreams and disappointments, milestones and mistakes, camaraderie and confessions, happiness and heartache.

Because that’s what life is — some laughter, some tears, achieving goals, and facing fears.

Ed’s greatest gift was making those around him always feel better, doing it through optimism, joy, humor, and courage. That’s why I always admired him so — before his cancer, once he was diagnosed in 2006, while he lived with it, and now after — because he possessed so much more of all those qualities than I do.

Except maybe humor; we argued all the time about who was funnier. For years. Never resolved.

I once took his youngest son to a basketball game to see LeBron James. I don’t remember how many points LeBron scored. What I do remember is that night I got his son to sign and date a document I had carefully crafted, stating I was indeed funnier than his father. Had always been — and by a wide margin.

Ed kicked him out of the house for that. But that’s not important.

Ed loved so much in life — skiing, hiking, traveling, music, sporting events, a good bottle of wine — but he loved being a father to his two boys (now men) more than anything else in the world. He was happiest when they were doing all those things together. They were his life’s true pleasure, along with his amazing girlfriend Sue, his loving partner the last decade of his life.

And Sue knows cancer, too. Diagnosed in high school, she underwent chemotherapy her freshman year of college, all before earning two degrees, blazing a satisfying and rewarding career, and then finding the love of her life by meeting Ed. Together they shared life’s finest moments and favorite memories for many unforgettable years far beyond his prognosis.

All of this is why I established the Ed Davis from Cancer to College Endowed Scholarship. To honor who he was, how much he meant, and how much he’s missed — and to offer some financial support to students facing health challenges similar to his.

I’d like to imagine a world without cancer.
But I can’t.

The world I can imagine is one with heroic patient-role models for the rest of us, increasingly better treatment options, less suffering, game changing medical breakthroughs, brilliant and dedicated scientists, influential philanthropists, indispensable charities, and invaluable support networks. And all the people in one’s life that continue to comfort, encourage, love, and inspire during the most necessary of times.

I wish you strength in your battles.
And insight on your journey.

And so would Ed.

With sincere thanks for the friendships in life that are the most meaningful and the qualities that make those friends so special.

Keith Baim