The Ennes Educational Foundation Trust™ has awarded four scholarships for 2019. Winners were chosen from applications received by July 1, 2019, from the previous 12 months.
The Harold E. Ennes Scholarship, Robert D. Greenberg Scholarship and John H. Battison Founder’s Scholarship are awarded to individuals interested in continuing or beginning their education in broadcast engineering and technology. The Youth Scholarship is specifically for a graduating high school senior interested in broadcast engineering as a career. Each scholarship awarded this year is for $1,500.
This year the Harold E. Ennes Scholarship recipient is Nicholas Church of Rhinelander, WI. In May 2019, Nick began working as the director of operations and technology at WXPR-FM, the public radio station in Rhinelander, WI. He has a B.A. in music with a management studies concentration from St. Olaf College and is drawn to technology including amateur radio, micro-controllers, programming and creating efficiency through automation. After earning his SBE Certified Radio Operator, Nick began his broadcast education towards achieving the SBE Certified Broadcast Technologist and Certified Broadcast Networking Technologist certifications.
Receiving the Robert Greenberg Scholarship is Chris Gamelin of Middletown, CT. His interest in broadcasting began when he was 12. He learned how radio worked and started his own internet radio station and collected money to build a professional studio. He has improved his radio skills at WNHU-FM, the University of New Haven (where he met John Ramsey) and WQUN-AM at Quinnipiac University. He is currently a student at the University of New Haven, hoping to finish his part-time schooling soon. John Ramsey, who is now a friend, encouraged Chris to get involved on the engineering part of broadcasting. He has since worked as an assistant engineer at Entercom, and is now a maintenance technician at WFSB-TV. He has since learned to operate UAVs as well.
The John H. Battison SBE Founder’s Scholarship has been awarded to Sadie Levy of New York, NY. She recently graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she worked on various school productions as a Digital Media Department intern. Additionally, she was awarded scholarships to study digital electronics in pre-college programs at both The Cooper Union and New York University. This past summer, Sadie completed a media internship in a New York City government office. These opportunities made her realize that she would love to contribute to the exciting field of recording and new media. She plans to major in electrical engineering, with an interest in media production, at Northeastern University in Boston.
Andrew Marcus Heller of Two Rivers, WI, received the Youth Scholarship. His father owns two AM radio stations today, and Andrew was the first person to turn on WTRW’s solid-state transmitter at age three, and then again, now WGBW’s 12 kW transmitter at Denmark, WI, at 11 years old. Andrew has been involved in his high school audio/video efforts, and was the director of the student daily announcements his senior year. With a 3.9 grade point average in his senior year, Andrew was accepted to the Science and Engineering program at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He selected Minnesota because of its strong engineering emphasis.
SBE President Jim Leifer, CPBE, said, “Education is still one of the prime efforts of the SBE. These four rising engineering talents have earned their educational awards through the Ennes Educational Foundation Trust, and it’s an honor for us to help them achieve their educational goals in broadcast engineering.”
