Scholarships awarded to dozens in OMC Foundation program

Published 1:30 am Saturday, July 18, 2026

PORT ANGELES — Thirty-six area residents have been given a boost to further or begin careers in medicine through the Olympic Medical Center Foundation Healthcare Scholarship Fund.

The awarding of more than $500,000 marks the fourth round of allocations in the program started three years ago. Scholarships cover tuition, books and fees as well as living expenses in some cases.

With the latest allocation, some $2 million has been given to 126 people over the life of the program.

To date, the program has led to 66 working at Olympic Medical Center in nursing and a variety of other health care professions, ranging from lab technicians to medical assistants.

Augmenting OMC’s workforce was the impetus for the scholarship program in 2023.

Since then, it also has strengthened medical programs at Peninsula College, where most recipients attend school, Bruce Skinner, executive director of the OMC Foundation, told the hospital’s commission on Wednesday as he introduced the most recent recipients.

Most importantly, perhaps, Skinner said: “We’ve changed some lives.”

Almost all of the scholarship recipients would have been hard-pressed to afford furthering their education, which can cost some $17,000 for tuition, books and fees, Skinner said.

Among those, in the latest round of awards are:

• Dawn McCawley, 38, a Port Angeles native, an OMC medical assistant, due to graduate from Peninsula College’s RN program in 2027;

• Grace Possinger, 21, born in Port Angeles, a First Fed employee who has dreamed of working as a nurse since she was a child. “I still would have pursued the program, but I would have been feeling the weight of student debt,” she said. “I always wanted to keep that weight off me.”

• Susan Dahlquist, 59, who moved to Port Angeles about six years ago after raising her children and is a certified nursing assistant working the night shift at OMC in ICU. She is just starting out on a two-year program to become a medical assistant. The scholarship enables her to put earnings toward expenses other than education. “I was so excited, I was just bouncing off the walls” when she was told of her award. “I was just giddy.”

• Riley Hamman, 32, a father and Port Angeles native, working at OMC and studying in the radiology program at Pima Medical School in Seattle;

“It’s really hard to put into words, the kind of life-changing support we have received,” Hamman told hospital commissioners as he spoke for the group Wednesday evening.

“I like the ability to help the community that raised me,” Hamman continued.

He was born at OMC, his daughter was born at OMC, and his son is to be born there next month.

Hamman said it’s important to him to help keep the hospital going.

“It may be the most important thing to this community, this hospital,” he said.

The program was seeded with donations from George Brown and was named the George and Barbara Brown Scholarship Fund in memory of his late wife.

Other major donors are Margery Whites, The Littlejohn Foundation, First Fed and the First Fed Foundation, Bob and Sherry Phillips, Bill and Kay Hermann, Jamestown Tribe, Wilder Toyota and Arrow Marine.

Recipients agree for work at OMC if offered a job after they graduate and achieve credentialing.

Of the 44 awarded scholarships in 2025-2026, 32 are working at OMC. Many of the 44 still have to finish a second year or more before graduating and being offered a job.

During the recently completed school year, 23 students graduated. Of those, 18 were offered jobs and are now working at OMC.

All agree it’s easy to apply, with people available to help if needed.

Said McCawley: “Of course it’s great because of the financial assistance. But also it represents that someone believes in me and invests in me as a future nurse. … This assistance allows me to put my best foot forward and really motivates me to get back to my community.”

Working at OMC, “it’s really refreshing because I found my own people,” she said.

All interviewed offered their thanks.

“I’m super appreciative. This is not anything I would have imaged being available to me or being an option,” Hamman said.

“I’m ready to pay it forward now.”

For more information or for application forms, see omhf.org, phone 360-417-7144 or go to 1015 Georgiana St., Port Angeles.

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Leah Leach is a former executive editor for Peninsula Daily News.