NEAH BAY — Two Gates Millennium Scholarships were awarded to students at Neah Bay High School — amounting to 25 percent of the eight scholarships awarded statewide.
MichaeLynn Kanichy and Anthony Rascon graduated along with 23 classmates June 5.
School for the underclassmen will end officially Tuesday.
The Gates Millennium Scholarship provides funding for all school costs that are not covered by other scholarships or grants all the way through graduate school.
Kanichy will use her scholarship at Stanford University — which had only a 7 percent acceptance rate this year — to study earth sciences, said Neah Bay Principal Ann Ranker.
Rascon will study pharmaceutical science at the University of Washington, Ranker said.
“These are amazing, amazing young people,” she said.
“With 25 percent of the eight Gates scholarships coming to Neah Bay, it is a pretty big deal for us.”
Grades and school weren’t always a top priority, though, Kanichy said.
“I didn’t really feel I was up to the challenge, but my dad . . . challenged me to apply when I was in middle school,” she said.
“I turned everything around then, and ever since my freshman year I’ve done really well.
“In elementary school and middle school, I was in alternative school [when she lived in Pullman.]”
Kanichy said she stepped it up in high school and also was one of the students in Neah Bay to take its first Advanced Placement class.
At graduation, she was honored as the salutatorian of the class.
After achieving her master’s degree, Kanichy said she wants to return to Neah Bay.
“I’m going to take as much school as possible,” she said.
“I want to come back and work in either forestry or in marine biology.
“I think they are both good fields, and I can come back and contribute to this community.”
Rascon agreed that returning to Neah Bay was at the top of his priorities.
“I would love to come home and be the local pharmaceutical person,” he said.
In addition to his top grades, Rascon also was the first student from Neah Bay and the first Native American student to serve with the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association’s Leadership through Education, Activities and Personal Development group.
The group helps organize events and fundraisers for athletics and other activities in Washington schools.
“It is a very rigorous process and a great honor for him to be on the board,” said Ranker.
Several teachers and coaches in Neah Bay encouraged him to apply, Rascon said.
“It is really neat for me to be the first Native American on that board because it is great to offer that new perspective, to share what it is like to live on the reservation and to share the struggles we have,” he said.
“It is nice to help enlighten others to those things.”
Rascon said he was especially proud of the fundraisers he’d helped organize through LEAP.
“We did ‘Coin for a Cause’ where we’d all round money up and send it to the Special Olympics,” he said.
“We’ve also had a lot of discussion about things we would like to see changed in state tournaments and those sort of things.”
In addition to the Gates awards earned by Rascon and Kanichy, students at Neah Bay were awarded $65,000 in scholarships, Ranker said.
“That is not counting the huge amount that comes from the Gates scholarships,” Ranker said.
“The class did really well this year.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
