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Five seniors awarded Chamber scholarships
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Posted on Jun 06 2005
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce awarded scholarship grants yesterday to five recently graduated high school students during its monthly general membership meeting held at the SandCastle, Hyatt Regency Saipan.
SCC education committee chair Scott Norman presented $2,500 checks to each of the three graduates from Marianas High School—Jennifer Jang, Marvin Tamangided, and Sheriann Songsong. SCC member Becky Caballes Castro presented the other two scholarships to Calvary Christian Academy valedictorian Yveth Marie Mafnas and Emmanuel Borja from Mt. Carmel School.
Tamangided, 17, said he would use the money to help finance his tuition at the University of Guam, where he will be taking up a degree in political science. A Governor’s Award recipient, Tamangided thanked the Chamber for the scholarship.
“It will help a lot in my future endeavors in attaining a college degree,” he said. Tamangided said he hopes to return to Saipan after his college studies and give something back to the community.
Mafnas will first take up an associate degree in Liberal Arts at the Northern Marianas College and enroll in a bachelor’s degree program off island. “I would like to thank the Chamber for giving us this opportunity to pursue higher education,” she said.
Norman said they started the scholarship program years ago, with the first few scholarships were given to 9th to 12th grade students to help their local schooling.
He said the program evolved to providing scholarships to graduating seniors to aid their college expenses.
Norman said the scholarship criteria includes academic excellence, extracurricular activities, leadership qualities, community involvement, level of need, and a 100-word essay explaining to the scholarship admission committee why they deserve the Chamber scholarship. The applicants were then interviewed before the final selection.
Norman said this year’s recipients include two from the private schools and three from a public school.
“This year is unique because at the end of the interviewing process we have found that all five of these young people know each other fairly well and in many ways have many things in common,” he said.
