On August 8th, 2008, we were faced with a tragedy.  Our beloved mother, Dr. Nancy I. English, passed away suddenly at home.  Within weeks after Nancy’s untimely death, we decided, along with numerous friends and relatives, that we wanted to give back to the community.  We decided to raise money for scholarships to be given to local non-traditional women to help them further their education

    With the help of many family and friends, we created the first annual “Dr. Nancy I English Memorial 5k Run/Walk" in 2008.   It was a great success!  We raised over $15,000 that first year.  Our second year was a success as well -- so much so that we wanted to change the date to have even better participation!  In early 2010, we awarded 6 scholarships to women in Minnesota. 

    We decided to form a non-profit foundation, the Dr. Nancy I English Memorial Foundation, to give scholarships to non-traditional women with a high sense of community service.  We hope to give multiple scholarships each year.  We want to focus on the loves of Nancy’s lives:

1) Family   2) Patients   3) Mentoring   4) Community Service  and  5) Physical Fitness. 

The race event and the foundation will further all of these loves.  Please join us in the annual race and consider a donation to this wonderful cause!

                                                                                                -Hilary and Emily

Hilary English Crook is a graduate of Augsburg College and Hamline Law School.  Hilary practiced for awhile within in Family and Criminal Law before moving into sales at Thomson FindLaw.  Currently, Hilary manages a group of 17 sales professionals.  Hilary has lived numerous years in Norway, taking courses at the University of Bergen, University of Oslo and the University of Trondheim.  She currently teaches Norwegian at Mindekirken to 11 adult learns and has taught Norwegian for over 8 years.  She also does individual tutoring and translation work. 

Hilary is enrolled in the Carlson School of Management in their Human Resources and Industrial Relations Master's Program and loves it!  She is excited to have gotten 501c3 status for this foundation and loves working with her family and close friends on both the race and the foundatoin.  In her freetime, Hilary likes to travel, read (she recently started a book club), hang out with her wonderful husband, Jacob, and take walks by the river in St. Paul.  Hilary and Jacob recently became homeowners in St. Paul, Minnesota.  One of her favorite memories of her mom is all the time she helped her mom entertain guests for various events.  Her favorite "Nancy" quote is "Pick your Battles." 

Hilary can be reached at hilaryenglishcrook.niemf@gmail.com

Emily K. Crook is a graduate of Augsburg College with an undergraduate degree in Psychology.  After graduation Emily joined AmeriCorps for a year of service as an After School Program Coordinator providing academic and

enrichment support to Minneapolis/Metro youth at Project for Pride in Living, a local non-profit organization.  During her time helping at-risk and low-income youth with academic achievement, she decided to continue her education at Augsburg College Masters of Education Program. She is currently teaching Social Studies at Minneapolis Senior High School and working on completing her Graduate degree in Education and K-12 Reading Endorsement. 

Emily was honored when she was asked to coach softball at her moms high school alma mater, Minneapolis Southwest High School.  Emily has many great memories with her mom, one of her favorites is “supermarket mother-daughter moments” where they would stop shopping, look at each other, say “mother-daughter moment?” and hug, then go back to shopping.  Emily was introduced to running by her mother, where together they completed two half-marathons and various other races.  For Emily, the Nancy I English Memorial 5K  has been a wonderful tribute. 

Emily can be reached at emilycrook.niemf@gmail.com