Angel Society awards $12,000 in scholarships

FALLBROOK – Four Fallbrook Union High School graduates were awarded $3,000 each by the Angel Society of Fallbrook, a local philanthropy. This year’s scholarship winners were Chelsea Carpenter, Jordan Rowley, Emily Turner and Kelli Wiley.

The students were chosen from a group of 18 applicants based on criteria that included their grade point average, school-related extracurricular activities, financial need and the submission of a signed essay describing their future plans, why they chose their course of study and how they planned to give back to their community.

Carpenter, 18, was captain of the Girls’ Varsity Cross Country Team and a member of the Academic Decathlon Team at FUHS, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. In the fall, she plans to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she will study pharmacology.

“It is my intention to find opportunities in the medical and pharmaceutical field which will allow me to volunteer and provide aid to people in need,” wrote Carpenter in her essay.

Rowley, 18, was a member of the Boys’ Varsity Cross Country and Track teams, where he was voted Most Improved Athlete. He is also a world-class bagpipe musician who was chosen as the top student at the Army/Navy Academy College of Piping, and has won several awards over the past 11 years at various competitions.

“My devotion to the gift of music exudes a penchant for serving the community, whether at a Muscular Dystrophy fundraiser or a cultural fair,” wrote Rowley. Rowley plans to attend Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where he will major in philosophy and hopes to pursue a Ph.D., with the career goal of one day becoming a professor.

Turner, 18, was a cheerleader and a member of the water polo and swim teams, while volunteering 950 hours over the past four years as a member of the National Charity League.

“Each time I volunteer I fall more in love with the act of helping others,” wrote Turner. “I can’t wait to pursue this on an even larger scale in college and later in life.” Turner, who was also a Girl Scout and involved in the Courage and Break Hate campaigns, plans to study communications at the University of San Francisco.

A cancer survivor, Wiley, 18, was a guest speaker at the Make A Wish Foundation’s 25th anniversary event and also a volunteer coordinator with On the Wings of Angels, a pediatric cancer group. Her personal experience with fighting cancer taught her that “half of the battle is mental and emotional,” she wrote.

Wiley, who will attend Elegance International in Los Angeles, hopes to one day start a non-profit foundation to improve the design of cancer treatment centers to help “make chemotherapy a more encouraging and restful experience for those who are forced to walk that journey.”