The House is thrilled to announce that our Scholarship Chair, Tony T. Williams has just been elected as our new Treasurer! Welcome to the Executive Board, Tony! BYDAND!
(Tony will remain as our Scholarship Chair, as well!)
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.
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, 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
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.
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.
