MANDATA -- Now in its 10th year, the Wiest-Wehry Memorial Golf Tournament, scheduled for Saturday, has raised about $135,000 for scholarships in memory of five Line Mountain School District students who perished in a 1998 fire.

The event is held in memory of the children of Tyrone Wehry Sr. and Barb Masser Wehryand the sons of Northumberland County Judge William and Karen Wiest.

The five died in a March 22, 1998, fire in Madisonburg, Centre County. Also lost in the blaze were Chad Hain, son of Kenneth and Joyce Hain; Jason Herrold, son of Charles Herrold; Kip Snyder, son of Ricci and Jenny Snyder; and Nicholas Berkey, James Giliberti and Erik Gray, all of Lancaster County.

"It's a way to keep their memories alive and help people at the same time," Barb said.

This year's tournament will begin at 8 a.m. June 28 at the Indian Hills Golf Club. A silent auction also will be held throughout the tournament and a pig roast will follow. Music will be provided by The Fobias.

Prizes are available at every hole, organizer Kurt Masser, uncle of the Wehry children, said, but the most coveted is an eight-day, seven-night vacation to Hawaii.

Registrations, hole sponsors and auction items are still being accepted. For more information call the Wayside Inn at 644-2012.

Judge Wiest and his wife said the scholarship recognizes those students who are fun, curious, hardworking and show great potential, but who may shun the limelight out of shyness or modesty, attributes the Wiests believe applied to their late children.

"Through the journals and essays they wrote, we know that these young people valued their faith, their families and their friends," Judge Wiest said during his recent presentation to 11 Wiest-Wehry Friendship Memorial Scholarship recipients. "They were headed for careers in politics, education, engineering and law."

Though the fundraising event is a bittersweet one for the Wiest and Wehry families, Tyrone Wehry Sr. said he has found some solace in the scholarship that remembers his children.

"You try and turn something that was so devastating into something positive," he said. "It is at times difficult to energize yourself to do this because it brings back a lot of memories, but it's really helped a lot of kids."

Over the past 10 years, 130 students have benefitted from the scholarship fund.

This year 11 students walked away with $1,000 scholarships: Samantha Riffon, Jeremiah Lenker, Kelly Moore, Blake Riehl, Jaclyn Smink, Melissa Hovenstine, Meagen Shomper, Marah Welker, Lyndsay Welker, Maria Harner and Andrew Oxenrider.