Scholarship Recipient Hopes to Pay It Forward

For a dedicated student like freshman Faith Erramouspe, college was the place to go, even as the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down.

Erramouspe began at the University of Wyoming this fall, aided financially by the John and Patricia Eastman Scholarship. Awarded by the UW Alumni Association, the scholarship provides $500 a semester for two semesters to a graduate of a Montana high school.

And Erramouspe, a Billings High School alumna, is thankful for the help.

“I was able to go to college because of this scholarship,” she says. “But also because of it, I don’t have to split my time between academics and my work life.”

Erramouspe divided her time between Montana and Wyoming, attending school in Billings but spending the warmer summer months with her dad in Rock Springs. While in Wyoming, she also started working as an apprentice electrician, which allowed her to start saving for college.

“My dad is a master electrician and owns his own business,” she says. “After having knee surgery, he couldn’t really get into crawl spaces—so I did it. I got my apprenticeship license and was able to help him with that stuff. And I actually really enjoyed it. It was very interesting to see how it all works.”

In high school, Erramouspe got involved with the volleyball and softball teams and with symphonic, jazz, pep and honor bands. She also had a role with the speech and debate team for three years.

But Erramouspe’s real strength was in the classroom.

“In high school, I really thrived in the history department,” she says. “My history teacher was that one teacher I could talk to. He convinced me that I was a fit for college, even though I had my doubts.”

While the future is wide open, Erramouspe says the encouraging mentorship she received informs what she wants to do.

“I would really like to pay that forward, to pay it back to the community,” she says. “There are kids like me who were not focused only on academics or athletics but can do more than that. And I think it’s just important for the community that we have people like my history teacher who are there for the students, who not only teach but also support.”

Through the fall semester, Erramouspe took exclusively online courses, although not by choice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think in-person classes are probably the most beneficial for me and for many of the people I’ve met,” she says. “When I signed up for classes, they were all in-person and then slowly started to move online, dropping one by one like flies.”

Still, the decision to attend college this year was an easy one, as soon as Erramouspe secured the funding.

“School is all I know, and I don’t think I would do well with a gap year,” she says. “I don’t know what I would do with myself. But if I didn’t have this scholarship, I would not have been able to afford college, so it was a big relief.”