Talented poet soars above national competition

Whitman English major Sonya Hess is one of only 20 students nation wide to win a $32,000 Beinecke Brothers Scholarship for post-graduate work. A member of the class of 2000 who studied in France last year, Hess was the only student from the Pacific Northwest awarded the scholarship. She will receive $2,000 at the end of her senior year and $15,000 for each of her first two years of post-graduate study.

Hess intends to pursue creative writing in graduate school. She first discovered poetry in a seventh-grade English class, she said, and her subsequent passion for poetry "continues to present itself as a necessity in my life."

She was praised by Whitman dean of the faculty Pat Keef for achieving "a degree of academic excellence matched by only a handful of her peers." As a talented poet, an outstanding student, and an active member of the Whitman community, "Sonya is poised for an exceptionally promising career in creative writing."

Hess, from Ellensburg, Washington, has volunteered for the America Reads program, participated in the Whitman College Chorale, and helped edit the 1998 edition of the College's literary journal, Blue Moon.