Lynn Pawlowski, a recipient for the academic year 2013-2014 of one of the Boothbay Region Student Aid Fund’s “Named Scholarships,” just completed her freshman year at the State University of New York Fredonia where she is studying to become a high-school math and computer science teacher. SUNY Fredonia has an excellent reputation for teacher education.

Lynn Pawlowski loves the northern New York state university, and she especially loves her subject, math and computer science. According to Pawlowski, she has always liked math, which, fortunately, she has always found “easy.”

She simply approaches difficult higher math, calculus, trigonometry, and even computer science, as a “puzzle” to be solved, and then she solves it. Pawlowski is excited about the prospect of being a math teacher, and hopes to use her computer programming skills to make learning math as easy for her students as it is for her. Clearly, Lynn Pawlowski, with her passion for teaching is exactly the kind of creative, dedicated person America needs in the classroom.

Fredonia offers its students as rich a social life as it does an academic one. The school has over 200 clubs. Pawlowski joined the Sci-Fi Club where she regularly joins classmates in watching and discussing the latest science fiction thrillers. A vegan, she has absolutely no complaints about the campus food. Still, Pawlowski is happy to be home for the summer in the Boothbay region. In her own words, she has “missed the caring and consideration of the people and how beautiful the town is.” As she explained, “You can feel the warmth and caring and consideration, and it is what I miss most when I am away.”

Two very caring people, Bill and Carol Osterman, underwrote the “Named Scholarship” which helps Lynn Pawlowski study to become a teacher. Bill Osterman, one of our region’s wonderful and caring people, and an avid and skilled amateur photographer, died several years ago. His wife Carol is familiar to all in the region. Every spring Carol can be found at the “Y” donating her time to help people with their income taxes. It seems extremely appropriate that such special people as Bill and Carol Osterman Scholarship should be aiding a dedicated and caring future teacher like Lynn Pawlowski to fulfill her dream of a teaching career.

The Boothbay Region Student Aid Fund (BRSAF) is currently wrapping up of its Annual Fund drive and will be granting scholarships to the June 2014 Boothbay Region High School Class totaling $240,000. The Bill and Carol Osterman Scholarship is one of the BRSAF’s sixty “Named Scholarships.” Contributions to the BRSAF are always very welcome and in any amount can be sent to P.O. Box 293, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538. For more information on the BRSAF, go to www.boothbayharborstudentaidfund.org.