The Jan and Marcela Vaculik Memorial Endowed Scholarship honors a West couple who devoted their lives to family, faith, and the Czech heritage they carried with them to Texas. Both were longtime members of SPJST Lodge 54, West, and together they published the Czech-language newspaper Hospodář for more than two decades.

Jan Vaculik

Jan was born March 22, 1945, in Miloslavov, Slovakia, to Karol and Ludmila Vaculik. He studied at Hluk School, Uherské Hradiště High School, and Masaryk University in Brno, and later at UCLA. In West, he worked as a printer for the West News from 1975 to 1989, then owned and published Hospodář until retiring in 2013.

Jan served Lodge 54 as its Czech Reporter for more than four decades. He was a charter member of West Sokol and its gymnastics instructor since 1975, a director and Czech reporter for the Czech Educational Foundation of Texas, a member of the McLennan/Hill County Czech Heritage Society, and a volunteer at the Westfest genealogy booth. He taught Czech classes and loved translating, genealogy, photography, and collecting stamps and coins. Jan passed away on November 22, 2024, at age 79.

Marcela Vaculik

Marcela Thal was born September 4, 1947, in Chomutov, Czechoslovakia, the oldest of five children of Josef and Marie Thal. She graduated from the pharmacy school at Comenius University in Bratislava and worked in a pharmacy before leaving her homeland. After time in a refugee camp in Austria, she arrived in Texas on December 21, 1980, with help from the American Fund for Czechoslovak Refugees.

Three months later, on March 20, 1981, Marcela married Jan at the Evangelical Free Church in West. They were married for 43 years and raised two children, Jana and Jon. In West, Marcela drove a school bus for West ISD and worked at West Community Hospital and the Village Bakery. She was a director of the McLennan/Hill County Czech Heritage Society, a charter member of West Sokol, and a member of the History of West Museum. Marcela passed away at home on February 19, 2024, at age 76.