Port Townsend Yacht Club names scholarship winners

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The Port Townsend Yacht Club is awarding six scholarships this year, the club has announced.

The scholarships, totaling $7,500, were given to people pursuing studies in boat building, marine trades, and marine sciences. 

The six scholarship winners are Peter Dragula, Alex Guevara, Ella Ashford, Eric Berg, Olivia Nivison, and Zoe Page. Ashford is a second-time recipient.

The yacht club has bestowed such scholarships annually for more than 30 years.  

“Our yacht club members have demonstrated their generosity for and commitment to this scholarship program, even without our regular fundraising events,” said Paul Eisenhardt, chairman of the Port Townsend Yacht Club Scholarship Committee. 

“Each of our recipients possess a passion for the maritime industry, either in boat-building, marine systems, or marine ecology,” Eisenhardt added.

“The scholarship program is our primary vehicle for supporting the breadth of maritime specialties in the Port Townsend/Jefferson County area,” noted Jim Gorski, the yacht club’s commodore. “We are particularly proud to be able to contribute to this very important economic engine for our community.”

The scholarship winners:

Dragula is a former special education teacher with a rich maritime background as an avid sailor and seaman. His decision to change careers led him to the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding’s marine systems program. Upon graduation, he plans to find work helping boaters troubleshoot their boat challenges.

Guevara is a life-long boat enthusiast. During summers she is a river guide, leading rafting groups through sometimes treacherous currents and rapids. Now enrolled at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, she is becoming skilled in the boatbuilding trade. Her immediate future after graduation is at Boat Haven working with the shipwrights. 

Ashford has grown up being a voice for equitable marine and environmental policy. She is pursuing interdisciplinary study at Willamette University, focusing on a connecting technology, marine science and earth systems.

Berg is a born shipwright who is bringing his artistic talent to the world of wooden boatbuilding in the traditional boatbuilding program at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding. He intends to become a skilled shipwright.  

Nivison is learning boatbuilding as a way to blend her passion for woodworking with her love of the sea. She is enrolled in the traditional boatbuilding program at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, and her goal is to turn shipwright experience toward education for low-income youth, especially young women, in the community.  

Page wants to see the world through boats and after graduating from the traditional boatbuilding program at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, the plan is to build boats that will sail the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and across the Atlantic. She hopes to work as part of the Adventuress team and the Community Boatbuilding Project. 

Officials said the Port Townsend Yacht Club is already planning fundraising events for its 2023 scholarship awards.