Sierra Pacific Resources
Contact: Bob Sagan/Karl Walquist
Phone: (775) 834.4345

For Immediate Release

Twenty-four students from the University of Nevada, Reno; Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno; and Western Nevada Community College in Carson City, will be recognized Friday, Oct. 23, as recipients of the Sierra Pacific Foundation Scholarship Program in ceremonies held at the utility's Neil Road headquarters in southeast Reno.

Additionally, three researchers from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) will be recognized as winners of Sierra Pacific's Graduate Research Assistance Awards.

It was April 1996, when Sierra Pacific and the University of Nevada, Reno formally announced a Sierra Pacific Foundation pledge of $715,000 to support a variety of educational and research programs at the University, and at the Desert Research Institute over a five-year period.

Among those programs were 87 scholarships valued at $2,000 each, divided among the University's College of Engineering, College of Business Administration, and the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering.

Two weeks after the initial announcement, Sierra Pacific unveiled a separate, five-year $75,000 scholarship program for Truckee Meadows Community College, Western Nevada Community College, and Great Basin Community College in Elko*. The program makes 150 scholarships available to the three schools.

"We're confident these programs will provide meaningful, long-term benefits to the schools, to the students and their families," said Sierra Pacific Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Malyn Malquist."In the case of the University of Nevada, Reno, this five-year contribution plan will help support the school's goal of becoming the best small state university in America."

Scholarship recipients include University of Nevada students Woseneneh Bekele; Dusty Casey; Siu Cheng; Brian Clowers; Jeanne Jo; Adam Kincaid; Jeanette Kretschmer; Linda Manning; Chris Peterson; Coral Taylor; Chad Timmerman; Joan Wright; and J. Michael Wright.

Truckee Meadows Community College scholarship recipients include Elisabeth Bennett; Todd E. Dyer; Trevor R. Hobbs; Shuang Ling Kao; Shawn G. Louton; and Anthony B. Wallace.

Scholarship winners from Western Nevada Community College are Karen Boyles; Amy Camp; Rosana Chaplin; Luke Copeland; and Kimberly Rigdon.

Sierra Pacific's Graduate Research Assistance Awards, in conjunction with the University of Nevada, Reno's Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, go to Jacob McDonald, Jeremy Snyder and Leland Tarney. Each receives $4,000 to support his future graduate research.

The Sierra Pacific UNR/DRI Graduate Student Research Assistance Program was established in 1997 by the Sierra Pacific Foundation to assist Nevada graduate students each year, who are working under the direction of DRI professors and researchers.

*Ed. Note: In keeping with their past practice, the Great Basin scholarship winners will not be selected until next spring.