Scholarships help students from Kenya, Port Angeles

PORT ANGELES — Sharon Kiplagat’s ambition was born at the age of 5 when her mother died giving birth to her younger sister.

“I want to take care of women,” said Kiplagat, now 29, who traveled from Eldoret in the Rift Valley of Kenya near Nairobi to the U.S. to become a nurse.

Having just finished her first year in nursing studies at Peninsula College, she aims to join Olympic Medical Center as an obstetrics nurse after she graduates next June. Eventually she wants to earn a master’s degree.

Tamee Wood, 33, is a married Port Angeles native with two children who is moving up from work as a unit secretary to a registered nurse at OMC after graduating from the Peninsula College program this month.

Both have had their education fueled by a scholarship from the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, which funded her tuition, books and fees as well as living expenses, such as rent for Kiplagat and a house payment for Wood.

“There are so many students who want to go into nursing but can’t afford it,” said Bruce Skinner, executive director of the Olympic Medical Center Foundation, which operates the scholarship fund.

Kiplagat traveled from Kenya to the United States after she was accepted to North Iowa Area College, where she earned her certified nursing assistant certification. Friends of her father and stepmother, Larry and Naomi Enyart of Sequim, then contacted her, urging her to apply to Peninsula College and move to the area.

While attending school, she is working at a local nursing home, where she was putting in 12-hour days three days a week before receiving the scholarship. On Mondays, she had only one or two hours of sleep.

“My studying was going down,” Kiplaget said.

She applied for the scholarship because a concerned instructor contacted her about her tests scores and, after hearing of her situation, recommended she apply for the scholarship.

“It’s a good program full of caring people,” Kiplaget said.

The money eased her stress. She would still have pursued her goals, she said, but her grades would have suffered.

And as for fear of the unfamiliar, she said she tells herself just to face it “and do what you want to do.”

Wood, whose children are 13 and 8 years old, also worked 40 hours a week at a local nursing home.

“I was never home. I was either at school or work,” she said.

The scholarship helped with the house payment and other bills and gave her the ability to “concentrate on school and keep going,” she said.

Also helpful was the encouragement she received, she said.

In her evaluations, she was told she would be an “amazing nurse,” she said.

“It’s nice to have experienced nurses behind me,” she said.

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Leah Leach is a former executive editor of the Peninsula Daily News.