The report started with a summary of the scholarship criteria and process. Each candidate must be a graduate (or soon to be a graduate) from one of the Fort Collins high schools and intend to attend either Front Range Community College or CSU. The judging criteria include academics, extra-curricular school involvement, community service or volunteer work, leadership, work experience and work ethic, and financial need, all information provided by Poudre School District in support of up to 10 applicants from each school. The 12 members of the Scholarship Committee (all RCFC members) use this information to reduce the pool of applicants to five per school. Those five finalists submit a 4-Way Test essay, after which each is interviewed live by three or four of the members of the Committee. The interview team for each school then selects the two top students and a next alternate for that school. From this, the Committee Chair assigns scholarships to the students.
There are five named scholarships plus one from the Rotary Club of Fort Collins, each for $4000 (half distributed for the Fall semester, the other half distributed in the Spring semester assuming that the student maintains a 3.0 average or better). The scholarships and their recipients for this year are:
John David Sullivan Scholarship: Elena Crooks, Fort Collins High School to attend CSU.
James Morrison Memorial Scholarship: Tessa Delmore, Poudre Global Academy; CSU
Dr. Yung Hai Chen Memorial Scholarship: Joshua Barbre, Poudre High School, CSU
Schump Memorial Scholarship: Jazmin Garcia, Poudre High School, CSU
Rotary Club of Fort Collins Scholarship: Joshua Chavez, Rocky Mountain High School, CSU
Jane Welzel Memorial Scholarship: Quinlin Ruttenberg, Rocky Mountain High, CSU
Each of the recipients produced a short video accepting the scholarship and saying something about themselves, but the sound issues prevented those presentations from being viewed. The videos will be presented at future meetings and posted on the website. Fortunately, Tessa Delmore and Jazmin Garcia were able to attend our meeting in person and each gave a short and commendably assured speech of thanks, including a summary of their intended academic goals.
