Media shares WAVE stories across Washington

Workforce Board Co-Chair Larry Brown, left, with 2023 WAVE scholarship winners (center, left to right) Boramy Sam, Calvin Cha and Amor Ayala Luna. Winners were honored by the Monroe School Board on June 12, 2023. (Courtesy photo.)

June 2023

The Washington Award for Vocational Excellence (WAVE) is changing lives and making headlines throughout the state.

From Moses Lake to Yakima, Monroe, the Tri-Cities and more, this year’s WAVE award winners shared how the scholarship will help them achieve their goals. Students are working to become commercial pilots, nurses, sign language interpreters, manufacturing leaders and other skilled workers badly needed by employers.

The WAVE scholarship is an outstanding investment in our state’s future: It helps students succeed and builds the skilled workforce critical to Washington’s economy and quality of life.

Student Jesus Chavez Lara spoke about what motivates him to serve his community.

“I decided that I wanted to become a teacher of the deaf after working with the deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the program there,” Chavez Lara told KNDU. “It just increased my passion.”

In Moses Lake, student Victoire Wilondja is studying to be a pilot at Big Bend Community College. Ashley Curtin from Yakima is working to become a nurse. Calvin Cha, a graduate of Monroe High School, will study engineering. 

This year’s coverage also includes stories in the Okanogan Valley Gazette-Tribune, Big Country News of Clarkston, NBC Right Now of the Tri-Cities, Fox 41 Yakima and The Reflector of Ridgefield.

Workforce Board Co-Chair Gary Chandler, left, with WAVE scholarship winner Victoire Wilondja, center, and Aviation Division Chair John Marc Swedburg of Big Bend Community College on June 13, 2023. (Courtesy of The Columbia Basin Herald.)