May 17, 2025
ELKINS — Pilgrim Commandery #21 awarded the Owens Family Memorial Scholarship to six Randolph County students on May 6.
The 2025 recipients include Amy Dong, Madalynn Ferguson, Logan Nixon, Avery Row-Sponaugle, Emily Tallman and Sydney Weiford.
Amy Dong, an Elkins High School student, will attend Yale University. She will major in economics and plans to explore economic policies to aid underserved communities
Madalynn Ferguson, an Elkins High School student, will attend Belmont University. She will major in global leadership and work to resolve global conflicts.
Logan Nixon, an Elkins High School student, will attend Marshall University. She plans to go to pharmacy school to become a research pharmacist.
Avery Row-Sponaugle, a Tygarts Valley High School student, will attend Glenville State University. He will major in wildlife management to become a wildlife manager.
Emily Tallman, a Tygarts Valley High School student, will attend West Virginia University. She will major in wildlife biology to become a wildlife biologist.
Sydney Weiford, a Tygarts Valley High School student, will attend West Virginia University. She will major in biology to work in medical research.
The scholarship presentations was made by Justin Thompson, the Chairman of the Pilgrim Commandery #21 Education Committee, who has served on the committee since 2012, and has been the chairman since 2014.
“In my tenure, we have awarded more than $50,000 to the educational pursuits of our scholarship winners in Randolph County,” Thompson said. “It has been a huge honor to serve on and lead this committee. Meeting with these brilliant young adults really gives you hope for the future of this community.”
Pilgrim Commandery #21 began the Owens Family Memorial Scholarship Award in 1989.
Dr. Harry K. Owens was born on Sept. 18, 1869 at Bloomington, Maryland. He attended Dickinson Seminary at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. He spent one year at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, and then he went to the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, Maryland, where he obtained his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1895.
Dr. Owens spent the first two years practicing medicine in Davis in Tucker County, and then he moved to Hambleton for the next nine years. In 1906, Dr. Owens moved to Elkins, where he remained to his death on October 19, 1960, with the exception of the time he served in the United States Army during World War I. He was commissioned as a major in the Army in September, 1918, and was honorable discharged from the Army on Feb. 1, 1919.
After his time in the Army, Dr. Owens returned to his private practice in Elkins. In 1901, Dr. Owens married his wife Gertrude Horton, of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. They had two children, Harry Horton Owens, who married Edith Cooper Owens, and his daughter Barbara Gertrude Owens, who passed away in 1942 at the age of 35.
Dr. Owens was known for his charitable contributions to the citizens of Randolph County, and he belonged to several fraternities and organizations in Randolph County. It is in this spirit that we thank and honor his daughter-in-law Edith Cooper Owens for honoring his memory and love for the freemasonry and the Knights Templar by contributing the funding to the fraternity in order to continue contributions to the citizens of the region.
Harry H. Owens passed away in 1956, and the Harry K. Owens estate was then to be in the hands of his daughter-in-law, Edith C. Owens. Harry H. and Edith had no children. Prior to her death, Edith remembered her father-in-law’s love for commandery, and ultimately left the initial funding for Pilgrim Commandery #21, in his honor, for the Owens Family Memorial Fund. In 1989, the fund was born and will continue to donate funds in Randolph County in the memory of the Owens family of Elkins.
Tallman
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