CLEARFIELD – The annual student scholarship awards ceremony held at the Clearfield Area Junior-Senior High School on May 25 saw a reunion of three families that brought back over 40 years of memories.
For 2022, the Novey family selected Class of 2022 Salutatorian Riley Vaow and classmate Hannah Salvatore-Trinidad as the recipients of the Marsha Novey Memorial Scholarship.
Established by the Novey family to honor the memory of Marsha Novey, the scholarship is awarded annually to graduating seniors of Clearfield Area Junior-Senior High School who have excelled in their academic courses while participating on the swim team.
In early May, the Novey family selected their two scholarship recipients for 2022, and Marty Novey made phone calls to the two recipients to share the news.
At the Vaow home, Riley took the call and informed her mother, Lora, that she was going to be one of the 2022 recipients of the Marsha Novey Memorial Scholarship.
Lora said” “hearing this, I immediately had a strong emotional response. I knew and remembered Marsha as a teammate on the Clearfield swim team when I was in high school.
“I was a year behind Marsha, but I remembered her as a team leader and that we had taken the lifeguard course together and got our certifications at the same time.
“I also flashed back to the sadness everyone who knew Marsha felt when she died at such a young age.”
The connection between the Novey and Salvatore family was even closer. Marsha Novey and Wendy Salvatore both were members of the CHS Class of ‘82 and this is the 40th Reunion year for their graduating class.
Wendy recounted: “When Marty called, I was so proud to hear that Hannah was being awarded Marsha’s scholarship by the Novey family, but it also reminded me of the loss and grief both our families shared together.
“Marty was close friends with my brother, Richie, who died in an automobile accident in 1987 and he mourned that loss with our family. Then, just five years later, the Novey family suffered the same loss when Marsha also died in an automobile accident.
“We have a special bond of growing up together, graduating high school at the same time, and then helping each other through the loss of a sibling.”
Because of the special connection with the two scholarship recipients and their families, Marty Novey and his sister, Alane Seidel made the four-and-a-half hour drive from their homes in Maryland to present this year’s scholarship awards.
Marty and Alane see in Riley and Hannah qualities that Marsha would have appreciated in both academics and athletics.
Lora and Wendy both agreed that Marsha was a role model and a person they would want their daughters to pattern their lives after.
They said: “Riley and Hannah can both look at the example Marsha set as she was working in the field of human services helping foster children in the Harrisburg area at the time of her death.”
As they reminisced, Marty, Alane, Lora and Wendy noted: “40 years ago, we were all getting ready for Marsha and Wendy to graduate high school and Lora was finishing her junior year.
“Marsha and Richie were both still with us and our future was ahead of us. We could never have predicted that we would be together here in 2022 celebrating Riley and Hannah while also sharing some precious memories.”
The Marsha Novey Memorial Scholarship is one of the many scholarships established with the Clearfield County Charitable Foundation.
CCCF Executive Director Mark McCracken said: “This story of the 2022 recipients of the Marsha Novey Memorial Scholarship is a prime example of the positive impact that a memorial scholarship fund can have on families and communities.
“The Novey family established Marsha’s scholarship to keep her memory alive and to provide deserving students with financial assistance.
“This year, the connection with the recipients and their families made the scholarship presentation even more special for everyone.”
The Clearfield County Charitable Foundation is available to help any family or organization establish an endowment or scholarship funds to benefit people and communities in Clearfield County.
For more information or to make a donation to any of the scholarship funds, visit the website www.clearfieldcharitablefoundation.org or e-mail any questions to cccfexecdir@outlook.com.
