Founded 2001 · Iowa
Advancing educational opportunity in Dr. Simon Estes’ home state.
The LegacyDr. Simon Estes rose from Centerville, Iowa to the world’s greatest opera stages.
A world-renowned bass-baritone and one of Iowa’s most celebrated native sons, Dr. Estes has spent a lifetime carrying his home state’s spirit across the globe — and a lifetime giving back to it. For decades he has quietly funded the education of Iowa students, awarding more than two hundred scholarships across the state, including the annual scholarship given in the Centerville area in memory of his late sister.
The Simon Estes Foundation, established in 2001, is the vessel of that giving: a quarter century of putting educational opportunity within reach of students whose talent outruns their circumstances.
Talent is universal. Opportunity is not.The Foundation’s founding conviction
Simplicity is our discipline. Decades of scholarship giving have taught the Foundation that the surest way to help a student is to remove everything that stands between the student and the help.
The counselors and principals who know the students best select the scholars. A grade-point standard and an educator’s judgment — no essays engineered for committees, no auditioning for a form.
Every award is written directly to the school or university where the scholar is enrolled, credited to the student’s account. Clean for the family, clean for the institution, clean for the Foundation.
We do not collect tax returns, Social Security numbers, or sensitive family records. When a document is needed at all, we ask only for the page that establishes the need — never the whole file.
Every scholar knows from the first day exactly what is expected each semester, laid out in order across all four years — nothing left to memory, a phone call, or chance.
Each step a student is asked to take must justify itself against the real risk it guards. Procedure exists to serve the scholar — the moment it stops doing that, it goes.
The cost of an education is more than tuition. Awards recognize books, living costs, and the gaps between financial aid and actual enrollment — the real arithmetic of staying in school.
“The scholarship is structured to meet you where you are — not where a form assumes you should be.”
An inaugural named scholarship for students of the Greater Des Moines area.
For the 2026–27 academic year, the Foundation is establishing an inaugural named scholarship serving students in and around Des Moines — the community Dr. Estes calls home. The award continues the Foundation’s long practice: candidates put forward by the educators and community scholarship committees who already know them, and support paid directly through the institution where each scholar is enrolled.
The Foundation is honored to be working alongside the scholarship program of the Des Moines Valley Golf Club, a Des Moines institution whose scholarship committee has supported area students for many years. Their knowledge of the community’s young people is part of what makes a simple, trustworthy selection possible.
The Foundation does not accept unsolicited scholarship applications. Candidates are put forward by the schools and community partners who know them.
Educators and community organizations wishing to correspond with the Foundation are welcome to do so.
Des Moines, Iowa