Special scholarships

CHRIS FOX PHOTO

The Willowbrook High School Athletic Booster Club held its annual Senior Athletic Celebration at the end of the 2020-21 school year. Several members of Willowbrook’s Class of 2021 received awards and scholarships during the event, which took place in the school’s main gymnasium. Six students received the Susan Jurkonis Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship honors 1994 Willowbrook graduate Susan Jurkonis, who played badminton and volleyball for the Warriors. Jurkonis received a scholarship to play volleyball at Purdue University. She passed away in 1998, at the age of 22, after battling a brain tumor. Pictured left to right during the Senior Athletic Celebration are Susan Jurkonis’s parents—Karl and Ellen—with the six scholarship recipients—Kaitlyn Abbott, Mohammad Ayesh, Nicholas Leo, Alejandra Lopez Sahagun, Peyton Mitrick and Andrew Rugg. Each of the six pictured students was awarded a $2,500 scholarship. “These are incredible young adults and we are honored to be able to encourage them with their dreams,” stated Ellen Jurkonis.