The Boettcher Foundation is a nonprofit organization that grants scholarships to seniors in Colorado; the intent is to keep Colorado’s greatest young minds in the state by giving them a full ride to essentially any college in the state. The scholarship has been around since 1952, it was named after the famous Boettcher family that worked hard and has now given back to many students in the state since it was established. This year, two Coronado seniors are semifinalists for the scholarship, Abby Bean and Jared Gorthy. It has been a few years since there were multiple students from Coronado considered for this scholarship, and for two people to have qualified for this out of 12 Coronado applicants and thousands of applicants in the entire state is phenomenal, but their work is not over yet. Now, teachers, counselors, and community members will write letters of recommendation, and finalists will be selected from those. If Abby and Jared are selected as finalists, they must finish an interview, after which 42 students will be selected to be the next scholars, and the recipients of the scholarship will be notified by the end of March.

Mrs. Schulzki, Coronado’s Gifted and Talented resource teacher and Boettcher coordinator, said that, “it’s quite an esteemed scholarship…this year we have two semi-finalists.” It’s a great achievement on behalf of Coronado and the school’s’ students that we have two people qualified. Undoubtedly, Abby and Jared will go on to do great things regardless of if they get this scholarship or not.