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Woodinville
Rotary Club has announced plans to create a scholarship
endowment for students pursuing careers in the community’s
fast-growing premium wine industry.
The scholarships are for enrollees in the viticulture and
enology programs at Walla Walla Community College and at
Washington State University. A grant will be offered at each
school in 2009 at $3,000. The club started the program in 2005 and
has provided two $2000 grants at WSU and six $1,500 awards at the
Viticulture and Enology Institute at the community college.
President Rick Pisani said the club’s 2009 award at WSU
will be made in memory of prominent Woodinville winemaker Lance
Baer of Baer Winery. At the time of his death in May of 2007 at
the age of 39, Baer served as president of Woodinville Wine
Country. Before opening his own winery, Lance was assistant
winemaker at DeLille Cellars in Woodinville.
Future
scholarships at Walla Walla will be awarded in memory of Stan
Clarke, the program’s long-time faculty member. Clarke was an
instrumental part of the Washington wine industry since the 1970s
and dedicated himself to teaching the subject he loved. He died in
late 2007 at the age of 57 and served as director of the community
college’s Institute of Viticulture and Enology.
The club will earmark future fund-raising activities to
establish an endowment within the Northshore Scholarship
Foundation, of which the club is one-third operator along with the
Northshore Rotary Club and the Kiwanis Club of Northshore. Returns
from the endowed funds would provide future grants for annual
scholarships in programs at WSU and the community college, Dr.
Pisani noted.
“Woodinville Rotary has enjoyed the exceptional support
of the Woodinville wine community in our fund-raising events over
the past four years which has enabled us to maintain the
scholarships over that period,” he said. “The continued
support of Woodinville Wine Country will certainly make it
possible to reach our endowment goal and provide a permanent
source of funding in perpetuity.”
The club will work with Woodinville Wine Country in July
serving as the ‘volunteer corps’ for “Wine Notes”, the
association’s first music, wine and food concertfest July 26 and
27 at Marymoor Park. A portion of the proceeds will be earmarked
for the scholarship endowment, as will funds from the club’s 18th
annual charity fund-raising event October 4. The fall charity
event – Rotary Wine’n Shine 2008 -- features wine tasting,
dinner and auction at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.
Through 2008, the Woodinville club will have contributed
more than $1.5 million back to the greater Woodinville community
and to projects sponsored and supported by Rotary International.
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