NEW SCHOLAR AWARDED
Star pupil selected for scholarship
by Suzanne Evans
On May 17 2005,
Ben Drover discovered his life was about to change.
Ben, who began life as a premature baby weighing a mere one and three-quarter pounds, is now 17-years-old. And he’s been selected by the Fernandez Earle Scholarship Foundation (FESF) as the recipient of a university scholarship to study toward a Bachelor of Science in nursing.
Since its inception in 2001 the FESF, by providing scholarship funding, has paved the way for two students from the Queen Charlotte Islands to attend the University of Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific University, respectively.
Ben is about to become the third FESF prodigy and he’s excited about the new direction his life is to take. He says the news that he’s going to join the academic ranks in Hawaii—all expenses paid—is slowly sinking in.
“I’m still a bit shocked,” Ben says in a telephone interview. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to afford to go to school, so this is a life-changing thing. It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to get an education. It will be pretty interesting to live there and experience the different cultures.”
According to Clemens Rettich, principal of Queen Charlotte High School, the new FESF whiz kid is a gifted student. He commends him for being warm, humorous and very empathetic, unimpeachably trustworthy, and someone who has all of the qualities sought after by the foundation.
In order to qualify for the scholarship students have to provide written material and make a presentation to four of the members of the board of directors, who represent the selection committee.
Students are required to display a high level of academic standing, and also demonstrate themselves to be well-rounded individuals.
“The criteria are very specific,” he says. “They’re [FESF] looking for people who are heading off into the marine biology field preferably, or something related to sciences and then after that what they’re looking at are the student’s goals and achievements. It’s a very broad mix of academic achievement, social achievement and community volunteerism,” says Rettich, who believes this foundation is one of a kind in B.C. and provides a model for future scholarship initiatives.
“They’re looking for an investment. It’s clear they’re looking for those who they feel would best represent the foundation—academic students, but just as important are their social skills and community involvement. They know that whenever they put them on stage, figuratively speaking, they’re going to perform.”
In a community of 6,000 inhabitants where employment prospects are limited to the natural resource sector, drive and ambition for many kids fall to the wayside—alcohol and drug abuse become a common alternative. However, initiatives such as the FESF, says Rettich, provide a motivational tool for students with goals.
“It’s just a remarkable thing—focusing on providing for a student’s future,” says Rettich. “To say it’s commendable sounds unbearably cliché and understated but it’s an amazing gesture to take a life’s passion like Fernandez’s and Earle’s commitment to this place and convert that into something for a kid from here—tying that in with education and youth. It’s a really amazing creative package.”
The scholarship is granted every two years to a pupil from Queen Charlotte High School and costs approximately $100,000 per student for a four-year degree program. However, future goals of FESF, says Director Irv Ridd, include sending students to Hawaii more frequently—hopefully, he says, on a yearly basis.
“We’ve always been cautious that each student gets funded, thanks to the sage advice of Roger Earle,” says Ridd, “We would love to send more kids, but we want to be absolutely certain come hell or high water that the student we pick is going to be funded through the entire duration of the program. We would love to do it every year but we’re not that well funded yet.”
For now though, Ben’s mother, Jill Drover, who raised her son single-handedly, is celebrating her son’s fortune in being selected for the scholarship. She believes this means a tremendous boost for his future prospects.
“Both of us are absolutely stunned, it’s just an incredible gift for him to be able to have this opportunity,” she says, her voice breaking with emotion.
“We are fairly low-income and he would’ve had to go through school on student loans. To win a scholarship like this and to go to Hawaii to do his schooling is breathtaking—such an incredible opportunity for him. Kane Fernandez and Roger Earle have left a legacy that keeps them alive forever because Ben will talk about this to his grandchildren—it’s just incredible.”
FESF News 2005
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