Point Loma High student Caroline Sickler recently received the Rebecca Christine Lenci Thespian Memorial Scholarship at the school’s Senior Awards Night. With a creative mind and a passion for the arts, Sickler received the $5,000 scholarship to help send her to the University of Arizona, where she will major in film and television and minor in communications. “I was overwhelmed with gratitude when I received the scholarship,” Caroline said. “At the time, I had been stressing about how I was going to pay for books, room and board, etc. and the scholarship made that all possible.”
The scholarship is in memory of Rebecca Lenci, who was 16 when she died in a tragic car accident. Lenci had just finished her junior year at Point Loma when she and her best friend Elsi Roman-Nichols, who was driving the car and had just graduated that same day, were driving along the 163 South to pick up a friend. The car veered off the highway and crashed into a large tree in the center median. Ever since that day in 1999, the Lenci family knew they needed to honor Rebecca’s life in a way that best described her. She loved to give back and she had a love for the arts. “Rebecca was unfortunately bullied a lot in junior high and when she joined the drama program in high school they welcomed her with open arms and went out of their way to be kind to her,” said Beverly Lenci, mother of Rebecca. “It truly changed her life.” The scholarship is designed for students who plan to pursue an undergraduate degree in theatre, film, or television as a major or minor area of study at an accredited career/technical school, community college, or four-year university in the United States. For the past 18 year, Beverly Lenci has traveled from her new home in Massachusetts to Point Loma to award one PLHS student the scholarship. In total, the Lencis, in conjunction with the San Diego Scholarship Foundation, have given away $105,000 in scholarship money for those seek an education in the arts. As Beverly Lenci puts it, “We certainly wanted to honor our daughter’s memory, but we also wanted to support the arts because they are important and don’t receive enough money.”