Submitted by the Lopez Lutheran Scholarship Committee for the Lutheran Church in the San Juans.

Congratulations to our graduating high school seniors! This is a time of big change for the islands’ students who are finishing their educational experiences with us.

For more than 25 years, Lopez Lutherans have provided scholarships to help Lopez graduates pursue their further educational goals at schools far and wide. This year, our scholarship was awarded to a student who you may not have heard about at the Lopez High School graduation ceremony.

Morgen Limbach graduated from Lopez in 2022 and decided to take a gap year to raise some money and solidify her plans for further education. She reports that she’s felt “incredibly blessed” to have lived independently on Lopez over the past year as she prepared for her next adventure. Working at several island jobs piqued her interest in business management.

That focus will augment her studies in psychology and philosophy, and those studies will begin shortly. In September, Morgen will be flying to Dublin, Ireland, to begin her studies at Maynooth University. Maynooth University has 15,000 students and is the highest-rated of Ireland’s four national universities. In accepting Morgen’s application, Maynooth awarded her a $2,000 international scholarship that Lopez Lutherans will match. We share Morgen’s forthright enthusiasm in anticipation of her studies abroad and look forward to hearing of her successes and experiences in the future.