Stellar applicants for North American scholarships

by Hefina Phillips (on behalf of the NAWF Scholarship Committee)
One of the greatest joys in life is to share ones passions with others.  Chairing the Scholarship committee of the NAAF has certainly brought me a huge amount of pleasure.

Annually two scholarships are offered to North Americans who wish to study in Wales.  There is an Exchange Scholarship of $5,000 and the Lloyd Travel Scholarship of $1,000.  Of course, deciding to whom these scholarships are to be awarded can be quite a headache.  Not so this year.  Although there were several applications, two were outstanding and it was not difficult therefore for the Scholarship committee to come to a decision.

The two successful applicants were Mari Morgan and Marah Hager.

Mari Morgan is well known to many of us in North America.  She was the director of Côr Gogledd America and is a prominent and popular conductor of cymanfaoedd canu.  She emigrated to the United States in the 1990s.

Currently Mari is reading for her PhD in Trinity/St David's University College, Carmarthen.  The subject of her Dissertation is the work and history of the Welsh American musicians Daniel Prothero and Joseph Parry.  This is proving to be extremely exciting and Mari has discovered manuscripts and information that were until very recently unknown.

There is a close connection between Trinity/St David's and the Madog Centre of Welsh Studies at Rio Grande University, OH.  It is from this Institution that our second winner comes.  Marah Hager's CV is spectacular!  She has been extremely involved with Welsh activities in the college, promoting awareness of Welsh culture in the community.  During her stay at Trinity/St David's she will work on a publication documenting her personal experience in the Welsh Exchange programme.  She also aims to improve her Welsh and become fluently bi-lingual as she explores her heritage.

The Scholarship committee were so impressed with these two stellar applicants that the decision was made to divide the scholarship moneys equally between them.

We are extremely proud of them both and wish them "Pob lwc" as they continue with their studies.

A third scholarship is the Lloyd Jones Scholarship at Bangor University. A major endowment has been provided by Lloyd Jones of Allentown, PA to recognize the accomplishments of individuals graduating from Bangor University, North Wales.  Awards are given to promising young entrepreneurs based on projects completed in their undergraduate studies.  This year's recipients are Rhiannon Haf Quirk who designed and manufactures soft toys and decorative furnishings for her proposed on-line business, and Richard Gabriel Noakes, who designed and manufactured a prototype camera system to increase visibility for tractor drivers reversing attached trailers on farms in mid-Wales.

Rhiannon and Richard graduated from Bangor this year with a B.Sc. in product design.  We congratulate them and wish them well as they begin their careers in Wales.