Scholarships Recipients

2024 Scholarship Recipients

Every year the House of Gordon USA awards a minimum of three scholarships through our Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship. These are awarded to help the young, and even the young at heart to further their studies in the Scottish Arts, including but not limited to: piping, highland drumming, highland dance, fiddle, heavy athletics, and Gaelic language study. It is my great pleasure to announce our 2024 recipients!!!

The Executive Board awarded $500 Scholarships to: Brynn Brown, 14 year old dancer, Chase Leadmon, 11 year old dancer, Katherine Pritchard, 10 year old drummer, Elizabeth Wendland, 14 year old dancer, and the Queen City Juvenile Pipes & Drums.

We also awarded $200 Scholarships to: Alyse Duppenthaler, 13 year old dancer, Hannah Brugger, 18 year old dancer, and Audrey Davies, 14 year old dancer.

The winner of the Grade 4 Piper of the Day Award at 2023 Grandfather Mountain Highland Games was Luke DeGhetto. He was awarded $250.

A special thanks to our Executive Board Members for their time and service to the Scottish Highland community in making this process a success. Thanks to every House of Gordon USA Member who contributes to this fund. You are the bloodline in supporting our youth. Thank you to all the fine applicants who applied, we wish you all the best in your endeavors and invite you to apply again next year!!!!

Tony T. Williams

Scholarship Chair & Treasurer

House of Gordon USA

By House of Gordon USA, ago

2023 Scholarship Recipients

2023 Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship Recipients

Every year the House of Gordon USA awards a minimum of three scholarships through our Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship. These are awarded to help the young, and even the young at heart to further their studies in the Scottish Arts, including but not limited to: piping, highland drumming, highland dance, fiddle, heavy athletics, and Gaelic language study. It is my great pleasure to announce our three recipients for 2023!

Cohen Pritchard

Cohen is an 11-year-old drummer from Rutherfordton, NC. He started started his study of Scottish snare drum about two years ago, but is already impressing us with his skills. His first competition was at Stone Mountain Games October 2022 where he received Drummer of the Day, Grade 5 Snare 1st place. We’re awarding Cohen $500.

Mercedes Knoflicek

Merecedes is a 13-year-old highland dancer from Madison, WI. She started her journey to learn dance at age 10. Since the summer of 2021, Mercedes has been in 15 competitions. She’s received awards at the USIR Highland Dance Championship in 2022, the Frozen Fling Highland Dance Completion in 2022 and 2023, and at the Quad Cities Highland Dance Competition in 2023. We’re awarding Mercedes $500.

Molly Smith

Molly is a 20-year-old from Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Molly’s family runs the Brenda Gordon School of Dance in Aberdeenshire and she shared with us that she’s been dancing since she could walk. Her awards are Atlantic International Champion- Grandfather Mountain, and Grampian Games League Winner 2022-Braemar Gathering are a couple in 2022, she won over 50 trophies in 2022. She was 1st Runner up Scottish National Champion Cowal Highland Gathering in 2016 and 1st Runner up European Champion in 2017. We’re awarding Molly $500.

Thank you to all the fine applicants who applied, we wish you all the best in your endeavors and invite you to apply again next year!!!!

By House of Gordon USA, ago

2022 Scholarship Recipients

2022 Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship Winners

We are happy to award the Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship to Vanessa Sharpe and Travis Greer.

Every year The House of Gordon USA awards scholarships through the Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship Program to two lucky individuals who wish to further their studies and training in the Scottish Arts, including but not limited to: piping, highland drumming, highland dance, fiddle, heavy athletics, and Gaelic language study.

This year we had few applicants. We did have two outstanding individuals that the Board was excited to sponsor.

Vanessa Mhairi Gordon Sharp

Vanessa is about to finish her first year at Mississippi College where she is studying linguistics. She recently for out she has been accepted a Gaelic Immersion course at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. This year-long program will allow her to develop advanced Gaelic language skills, as well as acquire in-depth knowledge and understanding of Scottish Gaelic language, culture, and literature through advanced level Gaelic language immersion. We are awarding Vanessa a $500 grant.

Travis Greer

About six years, while researching an interest in strength sports, Travis happened upon Highland Game Heavy Athletics. From there he educated himself on the sport and began training. He’s learned all the different techniques needed to be a fine heavy athlete. Once he began competing it awoke a connection to the true spirit and heritage of the game. Travis is our very first Heavy Athlete to apply for our scholarship! We are awarding Travis a $500 grant.

By House of Gordon USA, ago

2021 Scholarship Recipients

This year without competitions many of our youth have had few opportunities to participate in classes and competitions and improve their skills. Although last year’s recipients were limited in what they could do, they all worked hard to build their skillsets, and many put aside money for camps to use when the COVID crisis is behind us.

This year we had few applicants for obvious reasons. We did have two outstanding highland dancers that the Board was excited to sponsor. We are happy to award the Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship to Audrey Trawick & Sage Tousey!

Audrey Trawick

Audrey Trawick

Audrey Trawick, of New Port Richey, FL. Audrey is a repeat recipient and is a newly fully certified Member of the British Association of Teachers of Dance which is to say, a fully certified Highland Dance Instuctor! She had this as her previous goal, and we are happy to see she accomplished it. We are awarding Audrey a $500.00 grant.

Sage Tousey Highland Dancer

Sage Tousey

Sage Tousey, an 11-year-old Highland Dancer from Studio City, CA. Sage applied before and while we were impressed with her spirit, talent, and progress, at that time she was underage to qualify for our scholarship. We are excited she applied this year and we’re even more impressed with her hard work and determination. We’re also happy to see that a former recipient of our scholarship, Emma Schiff, is her dance instructor. We are awarding Sage a $500.00 grant.

By House of Gordon USA, ago

2019 Scholarship Recipients

This year we are happy to announce that we have awarded our Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarships to four outstanding applicants. The Board had a very difficult time deciding on who to award our scholarship to this year as we had several worthy applicants for our scholarship. Each one had very real needs and each one showed an incredible amount of dedication and talent with clearly defined goals. The Charles O. Gordon Memorial Scholarship was founded at the 2006 AGM at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games by vote of the membership and we set out the goal of furthering the Scottish Arts and our rich cultural heritage by giving a helping hand to our youth who wish to hone their talents and accomplishments in the traditional arts of Scotland.

The recipients this year have already shown a strong bent to perpetuate the Scottish Arts through their goals of teaching and honing their craft to the highest levels and by volunteering.

We are very happy to award: Audrey Trawick of New Port Richey, FL; Sonoma Rushing of Cary, NC; Gus Schnee of Charlotte, NC; and Gemma Briggs of Clearwater, FL.

For more information on our scholarship, visit our scholarship page.

By House of Gordon USA, ago