The Ruby Rutnik Scholarship Fund has announced that this year’s winners are Nadjah Jn Philip and Nemiah Williams.
Nadjah Jn Philip is the salutatorian of her graduating class at Gifft Hill School on St. John, and Nemiah Williams is an outstanding member of her senior class of V.I. Montessori School and Peter Gruber International Academy.
This fall, Williams will enter Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, to pursue a Bachelor of Science Degree in Diagnostic Medical Sonography to fulfill her ambition to become a Diagnostic Medical Sonographer.
In addition to achieving high grades, working part-time and volunteering for various community and environmental projects, she has been lauded for her contributions as a member of the V.I. National Guard Family Readiness Group for nine years.
Jn Philip will be attending Morgan State University Honors College in the fall, where she will study accounting and education. She has been active in Student Council, the National Honor Society, and cofounded the IDEA Club on Campus (Identity, Diversity, Equity and Accountability). In addition to working part-time, she has been a Varsity Volleyball player, a volunteer tutor, and a dance instructor for the Dynamic Dancers.
The scholarship fund awards a total of $5,000 to qualified female students annually in honor of Ruby Rutnik, who died in a car accident in 1996. In 1997, an annual softball tournament was organized for female high school students throughout the Virgin Islands as a way to fund the scholarship.
In 2014, the Rutnik family decided to end the tournaments and use the funds already raised to establish an endowment through the Gifft Hill School on St. John. This arrangement was especially appropriate as Ruby was one of the original preschool students when the school was founded as the Pine Peace School in 1978.
The goal of the scholarship is to ease the burden of paying for higher education, especially for those attending colleges and universities off-island. Since its inception in 1997, the fund has awarded $214,000 to over 40 college-bound students, and additional funds support many of the undergraduate students at Gifft Hill School. The Ruby Rutnik Scholarship Fund and the Rutnik family are grateful for the community support of this heartwarming endowment.
Those wishing to contribute to the scholarship fund are asked to make their checks payable to Gifft Hill School, noting RRSF on the bottom of the check, and send by mail to: GHS, 5000 Estate Enighed #356, St. John, V.I. 00830.
