BEMIDJI AREA FRIENDS OF CONCORDIA LANGUAGE VILLAGES GRANTS 125TH SCHOLARSHIP

Saturday, March 12, the Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages awarded 11 one-week scholarships to fourth and fifth graders from J.W. Smith, Horace May, Laporte, Northern, Central, Solway, and Blackduck. The annual essay contest has been sponsored and coordinated for the past 13 years by the Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages, a volunteer group building connections between Concordia Language Villages and the community of Bemidji. Students who participate in the essay contest select a language taught at Concordia Language Villages and write about how they can learn and grow from the study of the language and culture they selected.

The funding for the scholarships came from the generous support of a number of local donors including Paul Bunyan Communications; Beltrami Electric Cooperative; Wayne Dondelinger and Dondelinger GM; North Country Snowmobile Club; the Bemidji Rotary Club; First National Bank of Bemidji; Affinity Plus Credit Union; Eagles Aerie 351; Naylor Heating and Refrigeration; Super 8, Bemidji; Kelsey's As you Like It; JP Egelhof Investigations, LLC; Herington Shoes; Coca Cola Bottling Company of Bemidji; Wild Hare Bistro & Coffeehouse; Diehl Project Management; and numerous generous individual donors. The Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages raised additional funds by hosting a Scholarship Benefit Dinner in October with a traditional Chinese banquet and presentation by Peter Wu Bishuai Williams, a Sen Lin Hu Villager and staff member, who shared stories of his time as a Fulbright Scholar in China and presented a traditional musical performance on an erhu. This annual benefit dinner is open to the public.

The 2016 essay contest winners are:

• Leila Greiner, 5th grader at J.W. Smith Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Norwegian Language Village.

• Carson Maish, 5th grader at Horace May Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Portuguese Language Village.

• Michelle Smith, 5th grader at Laporte Elementary, Laporte, will attend the Spanish Language Village.

• Allie Lish, 4th grader at Northern Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Danish Language Village.

• Tahlia Rintala, 4th grader at Central Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Arabic Language Village.

• Sidney Kingbird-Haugen, 4th grader at J.W. Smith Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Spanish Language Village.

• Madison Jensen, 4th grader at Northern Elementary , Bemidji, will attend the Norwegian Language Village.

• Tyler Wilson, 4th grader at Solway Elementary, Solway, will attend the Japanese Language Village.

• Sadie Stroeing, 5th grader at Blackduck Elementary, Blackduck, will attend the Russian Language Village.

• Laykalee Kingbird, 5th grader at Central Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Spanish Language Village.

• Miranda Thiel, 5th grader at Northern Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the French Langauge Village.

The mission of Concordia Language Villages is to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in our global community. It has been a model of innovative language and culture immersion programs and offers one-, two- and four-week summer programs in 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. Concordia Language Villages, a program of Concordia College, was established in 1961, and serves more than 4,000 people, of all ages and from all 50 states and many other countries during a summer. Concordia Language Villages also offers local day camps and school year programs for school groups, adults and families. For more information, please call (800) 222-4750 or visit ConcordiaLanguageVillages.org.

List of winners, in order on accompanying photo.