The Louis Osteen Scholarship

Written By: Marlene Osteen | Issue: April 2025

So many times, things aren’t what they seem.

Take Highlands Festivals Inc., the nonprofit behind Highlands Food & Wine and Bear Shadow Festival.
It would be easy to see it as just an entertainment machine — weekends full of music, food, and wine. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a lifeline, a dream-maker, and in my case, a way to honor my late husband, Louis Osteen.

Highlands Food & Wine was born from a simple idea — to bring visitors to the Plateau during the slower fall season, expanding the shoulder season and boosting local businesses. Bear Shadow followed with the same goal for spring.

In the years since, both festivals have wildly exceeded those hopes. Hotels sell out. Shops and restaurants report record sales. But what matters most is what happens quietly beneath all that — the way these festivals turn ticket sales into funding for community causes and life-changing opportunities.

Louis was a chef, but that barely scratches the surface. He was a self-made man from a solid middle-class family where dreams were modest and practical. Reaching for the stars wasn’t part of the vernacular, yet somehow, Louis became one.

And if he were here today, I know his greatest joy wouldn’t come from his own success — it would come from holding out a hand to someone else and helping them take that first step toward their own dream.

Funded entirely by Highlands Festivals Inc., the scholarship is now fully endowed at $100,000, with the annual award funded by the interest earned on the endowment in perpetuity to help students pursue their culinary education. For a student with talent, passion, and a demonstrated need for financial assistance to afford a world-class culinary education, this is the kind of door Louis would have loved to hold open.

One of my greatest personal moments came reading the thank you letter from this year’s scholarship recipient Imari Morehead. She wrote, “This gift has changed the trajectory of my life,” and described how it eased her financial burden, allowing her to fully focus on learning. “I hope to one day mentor others and give back the same way this scholarship gave to me.”

Reading those words, I could almost hear Louis chuckling — proud and a little stunned that his name was now tied to someone else’s future.

Highlands Festivals Inc. does this kind of work all the time, though not everyone knows it. The festivals have funded Friends of Founders Park, the Highlands Biological Center, the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, and the Highlands Food Pantry — all causes rooted in care for this community. The scholarship is just one more piece of that larger story.

I often think back to the day Louis gave the graduation speech at the Culinary Institute of America. I remember watching him at the podium — humbled, proud, and so completely genuine — offering his story to a room full of young chefs just beginning to imagine their own.

Now, through this scholarship, he’s still there — a quiet hand on someone’s back, saying, “Go on. You’ve got this.”

Because sometimes a festival isn’t just a party. Sometimes, it’s a hand reaching back, making sure the next dreamer has a way forward.