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Valeria Ibarra Cruz, Caldera High, will attend Oregon State University.

Marlen Dominguez Gonzalez, Caldera High, will attend the University of Oregon.

Valerie Santizo Hernandez, Caldera High, will attend the University of Oregon.

Chloey Leonard, La Pine High, will attend Central Oregon Community College.

Deakon Looney, La Pine High, will attend Southern Oregon University.

Elayna Marzonie, Bend Tech Academy, will attend Central Oregon Community College.

Kim Montes, Caldera High, will attend University of Oregon.

Jordan Moreno, Summit High, will attend Oregon State University.

Ella Tadjiki, Bend High, will attend Central Oregon Community College.

Are there students with better GPAs? More impressive athletes? Students with longer lists of activities and service? Maybe.

What singles these students out is perseverance. Each of their stories is different, but to get where they are they have overcome obstacles such as abuse, family health problems, parents who didn’t have much of an education, parents for whom English was not their first language, and juggling a job and school.

These 10 students have been rewarded with generous scholarships, Perseverance Awards, from the .

It’s making the difference for some students enabling them to attend their school of choice or even be able to go.

“I didn’t think this was ever going to be real,� Marlen Dominguez Gonzalez told us at the award ceremony Tuesday night.

The scholarship “makes up for the gap and there was a pretty big gap left� in financial help, Valeria Ibarra Cruz said. Marlen plans to study biology and hopes to get into research. Valeria is going to study mechanical engineering.

The foundation’s Perseverance Awards have existed since 2014. This year, they are extra special.

Because of a bequest from the Mayantigo Charitable Foundation, the Axel F. Hoch scholarship was created. Hoch died in 2019. He was a force behind such restaurants in Bend as the Black Forest, Le Bistro, the Old Bend Blacksmith Shop, Jackalope and the River Mill Grill. He also opened Barney Prine’s in Prineville and Alexander’s in Redmond. He had moved to the United States in 1970. After cooking in restaurants in the Bay Area, he took a ski vacation to Bend.

You know what happened. He wanted to make this place his home.

His business success and generosity is now translating into the scholarships to give the 10 Perseverance Award winners financial support to go to college. The scholarship is enabling the competitive awards to be more substantial, covering up to 100% of unmet need for tuition, housing, books and more. As long as students stay in school and keep their grades up, the scholarships are renewable for up to five years.

The students awarded the scholarships didn’t get where they are alone. There were parents, siblings, counselors, teachers, volunteers, friends. And former state representative and school board member Cheri Helt and school district grant writer and former Bend Mayor Bruce Abernethy — among a host of others — helped make this enhanced award a reality. But it is the students that had to make it happen.

With programs like this, struggling students in junior high and high school in Bend schools can see that despite the challenges they face, with hard work, they too can get a chance at a scholarship for college or trade school.