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San Isabel Electric awarded a record $46,000 in scholarships to community youth for the 2023-2024 academic year. This year’s funding total breaks last year’s record of $39,000.

The San Isabel Electric Board of Directors scored the applicants based on their resume, cover letter, letters of recommendation, their answer to a 300-word essay, as well as the format, grammar, and punctuation of their overall application. The top-scoring students were invited to an interview to compete for a chance to win an additional $4,000 Powered-Up Scholarship.

Typically, the board only awards one Powered-Up Scholarship. However, the students that interviewed had such exceptional achievements, and high moral character, the board decided to award extra scholarships.

Leila Johnson of Pueblo West High School and Amelia Burbidge of Rye High School were selected to each receive a $4,000 Powered-Up scholarship, in addition to their $1,000 San Isabel Electric Scholarships. Their schools also received a $500 donation from San Isabel Electric’s Board of Directors.

Harlee Aggson of Rye High School, and Ronni San Roman of Hoehne School District, were each awarded an additional $1,500 runner-up Powered-Up Scholarship. Aggson also received a $1,000 First-to-Attend Scholarship and Roman also received a $1,000 San Isabel Electric Scholarship.

“It was arduous to select a single winner. Each one demonstrated commendable achievements and goals, and the board takes pride in being able to support their bright futures.” said Ray Garcia, San Isabel Electric Board of Directors President.

The following 35 students received $1,000 scholarships from the utility. All of the scholarship opportunities required the student’s parent(s) or legal guardian(s) to be members, meaning they must buy electricity from San Isabel Electric, and the student’s primary address must be in the utility’s service area.

San Isabel Electric Scholarship

San Isabel Electric Scholarships are awarded to the top scoring applicants from each school that buys electricity from SIEA, who have a primary address in SIEA’s area, and have a GPA of at least 3.0.

Aguilar

  • Micah Trujillo

Branson

  • McKenzie Riddle
  • Faith Vernier

GOAL Academy

  • Kylee Faris

Hoehne School District

  • Laura Montoya
  • Ronni San Roman

John Mall High School

  • Courtney Dotter
  • Shaylynn Romero

La Veta School District

  • Madison Nix
  • Tallie Noordik

Pueblo West High School

  • Shelana Fenn
  • Dominic Haro
  • Leila Johnson
  • Amelia Marmolejo
  • Cole Montee
  • Noah Wagner
  • Elizabeth Wakefield

Rye High School

  • Harlee Aggson
  • Markus Anglin
  • Gianna Baker
  • Amelia Burbidge
  • Zebadiah Laca
  • Brianna Prichard
  • Samantha Santini

Swallows Charter Academy

  • Kevin Shu
  • Hannah Storm

Trinidad

  • Makenzy Fernandez

First-to-Attend Scholarships

First-to-Attend Scholarships are awarded to applicants who will be the first person in their immediate family planning to attend their first year of higher education at an accredited college or university, whose primary address is in San Isabel Electric’s territory, and have a GPA of at least 2.0.

La Veta

  • Willow Clark
  • Mariah Rivera

Primero

  • Hailey Harris

Rye

  • Sydney Griffith
  • Joseph Valdez

Swallows

  • Mattie Ramos

Vocational Scholarship

Vocational Scholarships are awarded to students who plan to attend a vocational or trade school, whose primary address is in San Isabel Electric’s territory, and have a GPA of at least 2.0.

  • Makayla Baker Branson
  • Destiny Akin-Valdez La Veta High School

The co-op also offers scholarships to students who have at least a two-year gap in their higher education efforts, and to students whose primary address is outside of the utility’s service area, but the student’s parents or guardians are members. However, there were no eligible applicants for those scholarship opportunities this year.

Scholarship funding comes from unclaimed capital credits, which is money the electric co-op tried to return to member-owners but went unclaimed. The current list of unclaimed capital credits is published at siea.com/capitalcredits and is available in the April edition of Colorado Country Life magazine.

San Isabel Electric has been awarding scholarships since 1990.

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As a not-for-profit cooperative utility, San Isabel Electric provides affordable, reliable electricity with exceptional service to communities throughout southern Colorado. Serving nearly 20,000 member-owners and 25,000 meters, San Isabel Electric has been keeping the lights on since 1938. We don’t just serve communities. We are part of communities.