Selkirk College Announces Millennium Excellence Award Winners

Kim Lipscombe and Geri Rinkel have a number of identical qualities: they're both passionate about their interests, excel at their studies, are generous with their time and completely modest about their accomplishments.

Now they have one more thing in common: they're both Millennium Excellence Award winners.

The two Selkirk College students were recently awarded one of Canada's most prestigious post-secondary scholarships, which will provide each of them with $4,000 towards their studies and related expenses.

According to the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, the chance of receiving the award is approximately one in 800, but having a strong work ethic, earning consistently high marks and volunteering in the community helps.

Lipscombe, who grew up in Nelson and is enrolled in the second year of the Hotel and Resort Management program at Selkirk College, is no stranger to winning. Last spring she was part of a team that won the Tourism BC College Case Study Competition in Victoria.

Lipscombe speaks three languages and is interested in learning four more. She credits her studies at the college with giving her the kind of management skills that she feels confident will further her education and career.

"When I first learned about the award, I was ecstatic," Lipscombe said. "I think what I appreciate most about it is that it allows me the time to stay involved in my studies and volunteer interests that would otherwise be spent working a part-time job, and for that I'm very grateful."

Lipscombe serves as volunteer firefighter for the North Shore fire department, and she just completed her first responder certification.

Rinkel, who originally hails from Calgary, was also thrilled with being named a Millennium award recipient. She's completing her second year of the Clay program at Selkirk College.

"I dreamed of living in the mountains and doing pottery for a living," Rinkel said. "Finding Kootenay School of the Arts and what it had to offer set the wheels in motion for my husband and me to leave Calgary and start living our dream."

Rinkel has had significant dealings in the world of art for quite some time, having worked in galleries and in the fields of glass-blowing, silk-screen printing, plaque mounting and picture framing. She was also a volunteer at the Distress Center in Calgary, and she currently donates a considerable portion of her time to helping others and assisting in the clay studio at KSA.

"Here was a college nestled in the mountains, offering a very unique clay art program, small class sizes, and the most amazing instructors. I could not have made a better choice in my life at this time, and the Millennium award seems to reinforce that."

The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is a private organization created by an Act of Parliament in 1998. Since then, the charitable foundation has distributed more than $2.2 billion in bursaries, awards and scholarships to exceptional college students across Canada.

First published on November 13, 2007