Clarinda Torres

Northwest College student Clarinda Torres has been named a 2021 New Century Workforce Scholar and will receive a $1,250 scholarship. 

This scholarship is the first of its kind to support students at associate degree-granting institutions as they prepare to complete their degree or certificate and enter the workforce. The program is sponsored by The Coca-Cola Foundation and Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. 

“I have been applying for every scholarship out there, and I was very pleased to learn I had won this scholarship,” Torres said. 

New Century Workforce Scholars are selected based on their academic accomplishments, leadership activities and how they extend their intellectual talents beyond the classroom. Over 2,000 students were nominated from more than 1,200 college campuses across the country. Only one New Century Workforce Scholar was selected from each state. 

Phi Theta Kappa’s President and CEO Dr. Lynn Tincher-Ladner congratulated Torres on the prestigious scholarship and her “outstanding achievements.”

“Scholarship programs like this are integral for creating opportunities for students to succeed as they prepare to enter the workforce and for putting college completion within reach,” Tincher-Ladner said.

At Northwest College, Torres is pursing agriculture production and agriculture farm and ranch management.

“I’m taking more of a catered approach and choosing classes that I believe will help me reach my goals more efficiently,” she said.

Torres said her plans “include a lot of small-scale farming in the form of establishing greenhouses, gardens, perennial food forests and fruit orchards with food that grows native to Wyoming and foods that don’t like to grow here.”

“I want to be able to help anyone learn the lost art of growing and preserving food,” she said. 

Ultimately, Torres and her husband Joel hope to open a farm-to-table restaurant and establish fruit orchards that are open to the public. 

The New Century Workforce Scholars will be formally recognized in the fall.