The Las Campanas Scholarship Fund through the eyes of recipient Ximena de los Rios.
As kids we grew up dreaming and thinking "What are we going to do when we grow up?" Dreams are motivation for people, they are the reason for our effort every day. Dreams aren’t easy to accomplish, they take time, effort and a lot of dedication. They’re not easy but luckily they are not impossible either.
I always had two main goals in mind: study and travel. I grew up in a small town located in Chihuahua, Mexico, very unique and beautiful, but not with a lot of opportunities. When I was fourteen years old I realized that If I wanted to accomplish my dreams I would have
to go somewhere else. A couple of months later I was already in New Mexico with my Guardian, Norma Deets (an employee at The Club at Las Campanas), starting my sophomore year in high school.
After finishing high school, I wanted to keep studying and preparing myself, but reality again came into my life and made me realize that college is not as cheap as high school. Fortunately, the Las Campanas scholarship gave me an opportunity, and since my freshman year of college, they have been helping and supporting me with all my tuition, fees and books.
I talked to one of the Directors of the Las Campanas Scholarship Fund, Dr. Lori Adcock, and told her about my dream to go to Costa Rica and study abroad. As soon as I told her, she right away showed interest in helping me, and again a couple of months later I was studying in Costa Rica with all the expenses of the program covered.
Today, I’m in my senior year of college, just one step behind accomplishing another of my dreams. I will be graduating with a double major in Linguistics and Spanish at the University of New Mexico. I couldn’t be more thankful to all the Directors and people from the Las Campanas Scholarship Fund that since my first day of college believed in me and have been there helping and supporting me with my career.
I still want to travel to other places and learn from other cultures and I definitely would like to take my education to the next level by getting a Master’s degree, and since we are talking about dreams, why not, a Ph.D. as well.
Excerpted from an article for El Vocero written by Ximena de los Rios, a multi-year recipient of the Scholarship Fund
