Golden Apple: NTC Congratulates 2021 Scholarship Recipients

It was an exciting morning for many Northwest Technical College faculty members, sponsors, and family members today as they congratulated their scholarship students over a light breakfast and a ceremony to follow at NTC.

For the past three years, NTC has been giving scholarships to more than 100 students for a combined total of $177,000. This year, they are awarding $53,500 to 47 NTC students, within nine different scholarship categories.

All of the applications that they receive are reviewed by an internal scholarship committee whose members dedicate hours of their time making sure they are selecting the worthiest candidates. This year, NTC had over 200 applications to review. Though there were many scholarships to choose from, one was dedicated to a former NTC faculty member: Sandy Johanning, a retired nursing faculty member.

There were three scholarship recipients who received the Sandy Johanning Award for Compassion: Bailey Haugen, Olha Finnelly, and Josiah Bakke. One thing that Johanning mentioned is that the nurses she remembers and her late husband remembered were the ones with compassion. Her goal for this award was to not only memorialize her husband’s passing, but to also recognize these traits in nurses and honor them for what makes them so memorable.

While most students juggle work and school, it can sometimes become overwhelming. Many students are commuting back and forth, while others have flown across the state or even the country to attend school. These scholarships are given to help with some of those burdens.

Though many of these scholarship recipients are very thankful for their donors, as one student shared it’s not so much about the money. Rather, the real reward is the passion behind what their learning and what they’re doing.