MERRILLVILLE | The Melissa Cook Memorial Foundation has announced its 2010 scholarship recipients, Paige Wilson, of Merrillville High School, and Aaron Jackson, of Hanover Central High School in Cedar Lake.

Linda and Paul Demo, Melissa Cook's mother and stepfather, created the foundation to give need-based, four-year, on-campus scholarships to students from Northwest Indiana. The couple, formerly of Northwest Indiana and current Florida residents, hosted the foundation's annual recipient luncheon in August, welcoming Wilson and Jackson along with several of the 11 ongoing scholarship recipients.

The foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, was formed in memory of their daughter Melissa, a 1990 Merrillville High School  and 1994 University of Notre Dame graduate tragically killed on the eve of her 30 birthday in 2002, when scaffolding fell onto her car from the John Hancock Building in Chicago.

With the accident settlement money, the Cooks underwrote the construction of the state-of-the-art Melissa Cook Softball Stadium at the University of Notre Dame and funded the scholarship foundation.

Cook's experience at Notre Dame was such an integral part of her becoming the young woman she was that the Demos felt it was fitting they honor her memory by giving other young people the same opportunity to experience an on-campus education.

For more information about the foundation, visit www.melissacook.org.