Amish Roots Conference: Breaking the Eighth-Grade Barrier

The deadline for signing up for the Amish Roots Conference is four days away. If you have been meaning to register and haven’t yet, now is your chance. Or if this is your first time hearing about it, you still have time. You can go to our Events page to learn more and register.

Just today I decided to offer a free copy of one of my memoirs, Bonnet Strings: An Amish Woman’s Ties to Two Worlds to the first 50 people who register. I will bring the books to the conference to be given away there.

Below  is a copy of the press release for the event with program highlights. Please read to the end to find out what I’ll be publishing on Saturday, here on the blog.

Breaking the Eighth-Grade Barrier: Formerly Amish to Gather for Higher Education Conference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MIDDLEBURY, IN [May 26-27, 2026] — The Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund (ADSF) will host a conference Plain Roots: Community, Story, and Support for Higher Education at the Essenhaus Inn and Conference Center on June 26 and 27. The event brings together a group of formerly Amish people who bridge a cultural divide, from aspiring and current students to graduates set in their careers, while welcoming all interested parties.

What happens when Amish youth seek more education than their culture allows? Virtually always, they must leave the only life they know, earn a GED to make up for missing high school, and navigate college and tuition payments without parental support. ADSF provides that critical backing. The inspiration for this event mirrors the origins of the fund. “The idea for ADSF came to me quite often because I searched for Amish scholarship funds repeatedly during my university years,” says co-founder Emma Miller. “I realized the only reason there wasn’t one was because no one had created it yet and I asked myself ‘If not me, then who?’”

Vice chair of the board Saloma Miller Furlong describes what motivates her work: “I’ll never forget how much I longed to return to school the autumn after I graduated from eighth grade. I told myself, ‘If I could change this, I would.’ I couldn’t then, but three decades later I made it to Smith College. Now as an ADSF team member, I hope to make higher education attainable for any formerly Amish who desire it.”

The conference lineup features a series of presentations, personal stories, and panels with formerly Amish scholars and professionals, including:

• Professors, current students, and authors

• Medical professionals, an engineer, a pilot, and a physicist

A special presentation about ADSF’s origins and growth by the founders and current team.

Linguistic research will be presented by Rose Fisher, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, who will discuss her ongoing work on Pennsylvania Dutch dialects.

A major highlight of the program is a first-look presentation by board member Eythana Miller on Heritage in Translation, a new oral history on the unconventional Amish community where she grew up in Libby, Montana. She interviewed 35 community members, who tell of their transitional years as they modernized slowly out of an Old Order Amish lifestyle without officially leaving the church. They found the question of what makes a person Amish difficult to answer. Conducted in Pennsylvania Dutch with English subtitles, the project serves as an engaging educational archive for generations to come.

###

About ADSF

The Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund provides scholarships and mentorships for students from Amish or Plain Anabaptist backgrounds who are pursuing higher education. Our mission is to build a supportive community that helps these students navigate the challenges of college after an early education typically limited to the eighth grade. ADSF was founded in 2012 by two formerly Amish students, Emma Miller and Naomi Kramer Yoder, who received no support from their families while they were in college. Naomi and Emma managed the fund until 2025 when a new team and official board was formed. The new team obtained official non-profit status and are expanding outreach, raising funds, and creating more avenues for students to connect with one another and the formerly Amish educated community.

Register Now!

On Saturday, I will publish Part 1 of Sharon Beachy’s story. She is our newest Board Member at ADSF, and her story models courage, resilience, and a belief in her own dreams against all odds. Come back on Saturday to learn about this remarkable woman. She will be one of the speakers at the conference.