Church group awards eight scholarships
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Davis Memorial Presbyterian Church Women's group member Judy Guye speaks during a recent church service in which eight local students were awarded scholarships during a Gifts of Women Celebration.
ELKINS -- Thanks to the efforts of Davis Memorial Presbyterian Church Women's group, eight local students were given scholarships during a Gifts of Women Celebration at a recent church service.
Former Elkins Mayor Judy Guye, who is the scholarship chairman, said the group changed the way they did things several years ago in order to be able to give out multiple annual scholarships instead of one per year.
She said the group decided to ask members for monetary donations instead of buying a poinsettia at Christmas, a lily at Easter or a gift on Mother's Day.
"Over the last few years we came up with a plan to get some more monetary donations given to the Presbyterian Women Scholarship Fund," Guye told The Inter-Mountain. "The members have been very generous since then and this year they provided us with enough money to hand out seven of the $500 scholarships. We were only able to do one a year until we started doing this the past couple years."
The scholarship has been given out annually since 1965. It was established in honor of Minta Hopkins Ogilvie after she passed away. She was the wife of then-church pastor George Ogilvie. The scholarship is given annually to a high school graduate enrolled in a college or vocational program.
Mason Atha, Paige Corbin, Peyton Kirkpatrick, Mitchell Price, Richard Shryock, Elliot White and Jacob White were the seven students awarded the $500 scholarship. Over the last 50 years the Presbyterian Women have awarded scholarships to over 70 students.
"I'm very pleased that our members see this as an important part of our mission at the church for education," she said. "It has just developed into a very worthwhile project."
Another scholarship, the Duddy Bertolini Scholarship, was also given out during the service. It was for the amount of $2,000 and was awarded to John Harper.
The scholarship is given to students who are attending Davis & Elkins College. It was started by Roger Bertolini, who gave $100,000 in trust so the interest could be used for the scholarship each year. It was created as a memorial to his wife Leota "Duddy" Bertolini.
"We put an application out for anyone in the community to apply, but it turns out that most of the recipients are from our church," Guye said. "It's typically the grandchildren, or sons or daughters of church members."