SEQUIM — Sequim’s graduates will soon fan out across the United States, propelled by some $2.1 million in scholarships.
Taking a breath after the recent Scholarship Award Ceremony in the Sequim High School auditorium was Mitzi Sanders, the woman who shepherds hundreds of seniors through the college-application and -funding process.
Sanders has worked in the counseling office, upstairs in the school library, since 1999, but each year she marvels at the teenagers who come through — and head for places like the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, the University of Alabama, Gonzaga University and Georgetown University.
That last one was one of 2010’s standouts: Sequim High’s Thomas Gallagher won a full-ride, $228,000 scholarship to Georgetown.
Local organizations, too, back the young people from the Dungeness Valley.
Hundreds of thousands were awarded this year, as in past years, by the Sequim Elks, the William & Esther Littlejohn Scholarship Fund, Sequim Arts, the Sequim Lavender Growers Association, the Clallam County Firefighters, the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe and many local family foundations.
New this year are two scholarships from the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula, established by volunteers Stephen and Kim Rosales.
The Louis and Margarethe Rosales Scholarship, named for Stephen’s parents in El Paso, Texas, was presented to Todd Baldwin, while the Bryce and Gail Fish Scholarship, in honor of Kim’s parents in Sequim, went to Allison Cutting.
To Sanders, students such as Victoria Rodger are an inspiration.
Rodger moved to Sequim to live with her aunt and uncle just last year, and has done nothing but shine, Sanders said.
Since Rodger is an accomplished singer, Sanders asked if she’d perform the national anthem at the scholarship ceremony on June 2.
She didn’t want to pressure her, so she didn’t tell anyone else about the request.
Performance pressure
If you decide you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you can bow out, Sanders told Rodger.
But Rodger practiced for two and a half hours the night before, and performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” with pure grace, Sanders said.
“She killed it,” added Rodger’s classmate, jazz musician Anna LaBeaume.
Rodger is headed for Cottey College, a women’s college in Missouri, with $35,980 in scholarship funding.
She received the Cottey College Achievement Award, the Dewey Ehling Vocal Music Scholarship and nine other awards, including $9,530 from the Washington state chapter of the PEO.
Also during the scholarship ceremony, Sanders’ daughter, Ashley Merscher, presented the Ben Merscher Memorial Scholarship to Cutting, Sarah Donahue and LaBeaume.
The $500 award is in memory of Sanders’ son Ben, who was killed in October 2008 in a head-on collision with a drunken driver. He was 25.
“I can’t give out Ben’s scholarship. It’s too raw,” Sanders said.
So Ashley, 24, went to the podium and said to the recipients: “We hope a piece of Ben lives on in you.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.