June 6, 2001 – Jessica Buchalter, a St. John student who is a senior at Antilles School and will be attending Syracuse University in the fall, is the winner of the 2001-02 Ruby Rutnik Scholarship.
The award from the Ruby Rutnik Scholarship Fund was based on the decision of its selection committee, made up of five St. Thomas and St. John education representatives. Jessica is the fifth girl to receive the scholarship, awarded annually to a qualifying St. John female student.
The $2,500 scholarship is a two-year renewable award that honors the memory of Ruby Rutnik, an outstanding St. John student and softball pitcher who graduated from Antilles School. The daughter of Janet Cook-Rutnik and Andrew Rutnik, she was killed in 1996 in an automobile accident in Washington, D.C., where she was a student at American University.
The award is funded by the annual Ruby Rutnik Memorial Softball Tournament. Proceeds from the fifth annual tournament, held in April in Cruz Bay, are also funding the $2,500 scholarship renewal for last year's recipient, Kristen Maize, who has completed her freshman year at the University of San Diego in California.
The first scholarship recipient, Tessa Williams, graduated in May 13 from American University and has accepted a position with the Matthews Media Group in Rockville, Md., where she will be working in public relations in health care while preparing to return to school next spring to complete her master's degree in this field.
The second winner, Khania Dawson, is home on St. John for the summer after her junior year at Hampton University in Virginia. The third recipient, Tiffany Rogers, has completed her sophomore year at Florida Atlantic University's Honors College in Jupiter, Fla.
Last month the scholarship fund also awarded $500 to the winner of the this year's tournament, the Falcons of Good Hope School on St. Croix, for its sports programs.
