Category: Scholarship recipients

This year’s $2,000 scholarship winner is Heather Androwick of West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Heather has started her senior year, working toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major concentration in photography, at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. She has taken courses in Darkroom, Intro to Digital Media, Intro to Digital Photography, Theme Practices in Photography, History of Photography, Advanced Photography and Photography Studio. Heather’s particular interest is landscape photography, and she has applied for internships with state and national parks.

This year’s $2000 scholarship was awarded to Carlen Smith, who is studying wildlife sustainability and ecosystems science at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. Continue reading 2016 Scott-McKenna Scholarship Winner

Scholarship Chair Mike Hammond announced that the 2015 Scott-McKenna Memorial Scholarship has been awarded to Andrhea Massey of Mart, Texas. Andrhea sent the following bio, plus an article (see Coyote Studies). Congratulations and thank you, Andrhea.

I was born at home in a small house surrounded by towering pine trees. I was the youngest of six kids. My mother raised us by herself, working two and sometimes three jobs to make ends meet. When my brothers and sisters got older, they also worked to help pay for basic living expenses, but it was never enough. We spent years struggling to get by. Despite this, or maybe because of this, my siblings and I grew up strong. It was the beginning of a beautiful life.

Ever since before I can remember, I have been fascinated with the outdoors and nature. Some of my favorite things to do are hiking, kayaking, writing, and camping. Whenever I needed to cheer up, I went to the woods. I would sit under oak trees and persimmon trees, still and silent, as deer and squirrels foraged underneath them. I spent all my free time learning everything I could about everything around me, sometimes from books and sometimes from what I liked to call “adventures.” One summer, I spent weeks watching a beaver, learning things like the fact that they make slides, stash food underwater, and love apples (especially the red ones). I found out where it liked to sit in the sun and waited until it came, giving me a close-up view of it and a great memory. These days, I like to do research on wildlife, such as coyotes. I learned about coyote bioacoustics and non-lethal depredation techniques. It has been my dream for seven years now to get my college education and create a Nature Research, Rehabilitation, and Education Center where I can teach everyone about wildlife and their habitats using animals that would otherwise be put down. My goal is to provide a home to animals that are either too badly injured to be released back into the wild or too used to humans to be able to fend for themselves. I also want to rescue and rehabilitate wildlife and the ecosystems in which they live, such as abandoned mine land reclamation and restoring forests and prairies. My center will be a mix between a national park, a zoo, and a museum. Just thinking about it makes me grin.

Classes at my dream college, Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, begin August 23, 2015. I will be there, ready to earn my education and make a difference in the world. My thanks to the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers and Photographers Scholarship Committee for tipping the scales in my favor and giving me a chance to give back to the world.

Congratulations to Monica Craig, the St. Petersburg, Florida student who is the recipient of RMOWP’s 2012 scholarship of $2,000. Scholarship chairman Mike Hammond said that Ms. Craig is receiving the award because of her love and devotion to the great outdoors as well as her writing and photography skills.

Hammond said that although the number of scholarship applicants was down somewhat this year the quality of applicants was at the highest level ever, with the top applicants all expressing their unselfish desire to communicate to others the need to keep the outdoor world front and center, not removed from our everyday way of life.

Ms. Craig had been selected for the scholarship last year but was disqualified on the grounds she would not be a full time college student at that time, according to Hammond, and applied again for the 2012 award, which he said was a statement to her character and drive.

She will be attending Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and told us, “I plan to major in Environmental Science and minor in Coastal Management, which will allow me to pursue a career in conservation ecology.  I plan to work in a field that will allow me to teach the public about the importance of preserving natural places, such as parks and preserves, in an effort to save the wildlife that call these places home while simultaneously working to save the wildlife from harmful human interaction.”

Ms. Craig  said that while attending Eckerd she plans to continue volunteering at Fort De Soto Park, where she works alongside an incredible team of park rangers to protect wildlife such as shorebirds, sea turtles, and marine mammals from harmful human interaction. She was recently recognized for her outstanding work at Fort De Soto Park by Park Ranger James Wilson, according to Hammond, who said that Mr. Wilson stated that someday Ms. Craig might very well hold the title of Park Ranger at Fort De Soto.

This year’s Scott-McKenna Memorial Scholarship was awarded to 18-year old Pennsylvania student Hannah Misner. A freshman at Penn State Mont Alto, Ms. Misner is majoring in animal sciences. She recently graduated from Shalom Christian Academy, where she studied photography and won a number of awards for her wildlife photography.

“I love to spend my free time walking in the woods and photographing God’s beautiful creation,” she says. “Whether it be sitting in a tree stand, or fishing on a secluded lake, this is where most of my memories are made. My favorite time of year to take pictures is in the winter. I like to get up bright and early to take pictures of freshly fallen snow or frozen icicles.”

Ms. Misner submitted some great wildlife and scenic landscape photos with her scholarship application, according to scholarship chairman Mike Hammond, and also has a very impressive GPA. Hammond says Hannah also does a lot of volunteer work in and around Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her parents, and likes to go with her father on his hunting trips, with camera in hand to photograph whatever she comes across.

This year there were 114 applicants for the scholarship, Hammond says, which is 18 more than 2010. He says that applications were received from 34 states, and there were even two international applicants.

A North Carolina college student has been named this year’s winner of the $1,500 Scott-McKenna Scholarship, according to RMOWP Scholarship Chairman Mike Hammond.

Winner Christopher “Tyler” West is a resident of Topton, North Carolina, and attends Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, where he has a declared major of broadcast journalism and a minor in international studies. For the scholarship competition Tyler submitted a video on Glacier National Park, along with still images he has taken at different locations throughout the U.S., Hammond said. He also submitted his website, http://student.elon.edu/cwest3, that contains numerous other works. Continue reading 2010 Scott-Mckenna Scholarship Awarded