Five students at TN Tatem Middle School have been awarded the first Quinton Edness Scholarship.

It is the first middle-school award in Bermuda and was made possible by proceeds from the TN Tatem / Spice Valley Middle School Trust Fund.

The fund’s trustees accepted a proposal made by the TNT Parent Teacher Association in collaboration with the principal and vice-principal. The proposal sought to establish the scholarship in honour of the trust benefactor, Mr Quinton Edness who, along with others, brought the fund into being in 1998.

Scholarships do not materialise until completion of the students’ first term in a postsecondary school institution.

The awardees are: Jennifer Parra (the highest overall cumulative academic achievement for each of the three middle school years; Amon Wedderburn (the second-highest overall cumulative academic achievement for each of the three middle school years); Tiara DeRosa (most improved student over the three years of middle school with at least honours standing for one of the three years); and Jordin Edness (meets minimum academic criteria and teachers agree holds high promise for continuing his education).

The fifth recipient, Chiyaro Wedderburn, received his award a year early as he is registered in the dual-enrolment programme between the Berkeley Institute and Bermuda College. He will receive his high school diploma and associates degree at the end of this school year at the age of 16.

Principal Francine McMahon told The Royal Gazette: “The recipients had to do their second semester of post-secondary education in order to qualify. If they didn’t enrol in post-secondary education they would lose the scholarship — it is an incentive for them to do well and to promote excellence and further education.

“The students were very excited and they showed so much respect.

“Today in particular was very exciting for us. This year is our 20th anniversary as a middle school and our 50 year anniversary in existence for this institution. In 1997 it became Spice Valley Middle School, then in 2007 it was changed to TN Tatem Middle School. This was really exciting for me because this was our anniversary year. We had big plans but because of our transition to Clearwater we were not able to fulfil a lot of the anniversary activities that we wanted to do. “So today I said to the students that this is an activity and event that is history. It was particularly special.”

The fund was originally intended to create the first public school swimming pool facility at the school. Mr Edness said at the time: “I was inspired by my own life experience as a student, because at that time a swimming pool was a particularly prestigious symbol, which served to cement the socio-economic and racial divide between predominantly white private school students and predominantly black students attending public schools such as the then Spice Valley Middle School (now TN Tatem)”.

Not enough proceeds of the fund were made, but in the meantime, the objective of the fund expanded in 2010 to include other projects to enhance the students’ learning experience at TN Tatem. The TN Tatem PTA executive and the school’s administration decided that a middle school scholarship would serve the original purpose of novelty and prestige for TNT.