The Telluride Foundation recently awarded its ninth Neil Armstrong Scholarship. This year Kaitlyn Almoney impressed the scholarship committee with her academic merit, determination, leadership, and service. Kaitlyn, who is attending University of Southern California and majoring in Cellular/Molecular Biology (on a pre-med track), is only the second female scholar and the fifth from Telluride High School. The Neil Armstrong Scholarship awards one student pursing a major in a STEM field, competing from among five regional school districts, a $20,000 scholarship.  The scholarship is awarded to a student with high academic merit as well as high financial need.  Also, this year, the scholarship committee awarded a Neil Armstrong Prize to a student with high achievement but less financial need; Rowen Warren received the $4,000 Prize and will be attending University of Colorado Boulder to study Electrical Engineering.

As many Neil Armstrong scholars have graduated and are starting careers, the Foundation reached out to see where a few of them are now.  Highlights from these scholars include:

• 2014 Neil Armstrong Merit Scholar ($4,000 awarded to a student who was not as competitive academically, but the scholarship committee recognized their effort) Morgan Rummel, from Norwood School District, graduated from University of Wyoming with a BS in Architectural Engineering. He and his wife moved back to Norwood in August 2020 due to COVID and his ability to work remotely for an engineering firm in Boulder.  They had a new baby in October, and he was just appointed as an alternate member on the Norwood P&Z board, so he is already giving back to his community.
• 2016 Scholar Brady Barkemeyer, from Norwood School District, graduated from University of Colorado Boulder with a major in Aerospace Engineering. He just received his master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, and recently the University of Tennessee offered him a Graduate Research Assistantship to pay for his doctoral degree in hypersonic aero-thermodynamics while allowing him to work on research with his professors during the year.
• 2017 Scholar Henry Benasutti, from Ridgway School District, just graduated from Western Washington University with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Math.  He hopes to take a few years to experience different fields of chemistry work and then  attend graduate school in some field of chemistry.

 See Press Release on 2021 Scholarships