Three Lakes ROTC cadets earned college scholarships in this year’s U.S. Army Cadet Command National Scholarship Board. Jordan Lozano, Violet Niusulu and Grace Yuquimpo will each have most (or all) of their college tuition paid for Army ROTC.
In exchange for the scholarships, students enter the Army as commissioned officers upon graduation from college. Yuquimpo earned a full, four-year scholarship, while Lozano and Niusulu each earned three-year scholarships.
“I was really nervous because if I didn’t get the scholarship, I didn’t know what I was going to fall back on,” Niusulu said. “When I saw it, I was really happy, my mom was really happy and my dad was crying.”
To earn the scholarships, cadets wrote personal essays, completed a physical training test and were interviewed by a college ROTC instructor. More than 14,000 students apply for the scholarships each year, but only about 2,000 receive them.
“A lot of these scholarships focus on ‘scholar, athlete, leader,”” said Lakes JROTC Instructor Lt. Col. Allen Patty. “To earn these scholarships, you’re not just an academic, they also look at athletics. It shows a resilience and that students have what it takes to take them to that next level.”
Lozano and Yuquimpo will both attend the University of Portland next fall, while Niusulu chose to attend the University of Washington.