AUGUSTA – A Knox County woman Monday became the first recipient of a scholarship bearing the name of Joe Mayo, who had to step down as clerk of the Maine House of Representatives after being stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Mayo presented a $2,500 check to Morgan Kelly of Washington, a 1998 Swarthmore graduate who plans to begin a master’s program in wildlife ecology at the University of Maine in January.

The ceremony was held at the annual holiday party of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis support group that Mayo established after he was diagnosed with the disease.

The Joe Mayo Scholarship Fund is designed to help educate the children and grandchildren of ALS victims in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Kelly taught middle school science in the New York City borough of the Bronx for three years under the Teach for America program. She is currently substitute teaching and helping to care for her father, Raymond Kelly, who was diagnosed with ALS in September 2000.

There is no known cause, prevention or cure for ALS, a degenerative disease of the nerve cells that control muscular movement. It is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Mayo’s friends established the scholarship fund in September 2000 in honor of his 41st birthday.

Mayo, whose speech and movements have been affected by ALS, served as clerk from 1992 until 2000, when he decided not to seek another term. He had been working from a wheelchair while continuing his duties running day-to-day House operations and reading the official record during sessions.

A former state representative from Thomaston, Mayo lives in Augusta with his wife, Rebecca Wyke, Maine’s chief deputy secretary of state, and their three children.