Charter College, Frontiersman award $20,000 in scholarships

WASILLA - Three Charter College students are $20,000 closer to their educational goals, thanks to a Community Partnership Scholarship from the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and Charter College in Wasilla (www.chartercollege.edu).

This year's winners are Melissa Iverson, Nathaniel Foster and Jessica Boden. Iverson and Foster each won $5,000 scholarships.

And the top prize winner is Jessica Boden, a new student who received a $10,000 scholarship to Charter College.

"I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to get one," Boden said during her second week as a college student.

It was no small feat Boden said that she earned her high school diploma in January 1999 from a flex high school in Homer.

As a high school senior, she was pregnant with her oldest son, William, and missed the first couple of weeks of high school with morning sickness so severe she required hospitalization.

"It was a huge accomplishment for me to graduate," Boden said.

She said she credits the high school principal in Homer, who went above and beyond to help her keep up with her assignments and graduate in January 1999, ahead of her classmates.

Now this mother of two sons - William Parkinson is counting the days until he turns 13 in April and Kristofer Parkinson is 11 - dreams of walking with her new classmates at Charter College after she completes her associate's degree in accounting.

"That's the thing I'm looking forward to the most," Boden said. "So my family can see me get my diploma."

Already, it's changed the order of things in the Boden-Parkinson household, she said. Husband William Parkinson has stepped up to help prepare meals and keep the household running, as have their sons, who also are chipping in with laundry and dishes, she said.

More than that, Boden said William also is turning out to be a top-notch study buddy.

She said she got a 95 percent on the English test and a 100 percent on the computer test William helped her prepare for last week.

"It was pretty awesome to see him help me study," Boden said.

She said she hopes the example she is setting for her sons will change the value they place on education personally.

"I want them to want to go," she said of her sons' aspirations and college. "I want them to want to better themselves."

Just days into her college career Boden already was looking forward to getting her first accounting job and starting to save toward a family vacation.

"It's going to open up so many doors for us as a family," she said.

Charter's interim director of admissions, Josh Hanford, said one of the best parts about his job is watching how education transforms lives.

"We always like the opportunity to help people in our community transition into college," Hanford said.

Eligibility requirements for the scholarship stipulate that it is open only to incoming students who have completed high school by Dec. 5, 2011, complete an application and an admissions interview at Charter and begin classes no later than Feb. 13.

Foster and Iverson also are new students at Charter this semester. Iverson did not wish to have her photo published and did not respond to requests for an interview.

Foster is studying criminal justice and has just returned from a two-year mission trip to Georgia.

He said he thought he was done with school when he graduated from Houston High School in 2008.

But after his mission trip to Georgia, he said he realized he wanted more for himself than a job working retail.

"This helps make college an affordable dream," he said.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.