This spring Salmon Sisters helped support a local scholarship that was available to the graduating seniors of Homer High School. The Drew Scalzi Memorial Maritime Scholarship was established in 2006 by North Pacific Fisheries Association, community donors, and the Scalzi Family, in memory of Drew Scalzi who was a commercial fisherman, representative in Alaska's legislature, and friend to our family.
The underlying philosophy of the scholarship is to nurture young adults pursuing their careers in the maritime field or who are from fishing or maritime families. We wanted to help provide graduating seniors further opportunity to pursuit an education after high school.
This year the scholarship was awarded to Deonsy Konev, who will study Information Technology at AVTEC (Alaska Vocational Technical Center). Deonsy is from a fishing family, the oldest of six kids, and the first male in his community of Russian Old Believers to go on to college.
It is important to us that we're able to give back to local outlets that supported us, and our inspirations, when we were in high school. We think it's awesome that Deonsy has chosen to continue his education, and we hope his learning experience at AVTEC is a positive one.
