Six graduating seniors from Pacific County high schools will each receive $500 scholarships from the Masonic Lodge in Ilwaco.

The students have chosen myriad paths for their higher education and beyond:

• Ilwaco: Andrew Gaerlan, Clatsop Community College for a career in firefighting;

• Naselle: Alia Lebovitz, science at a four-year university;

• South Bend: Ferrill Johnson, science at Linfield University, where he will play football; and Lissette Jacobo Contreras, nursing at Eastern Washington.

• Raymond: Rylee Vanbronkhorst, Digipen College in Redmond for a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in digital art and animation for graphic design and gaming;

• Willapa Valley: Harley Thaxton, accounting at Eastern Washington University;

“These young scholars demonstrate that brilliance can shine from distant stars. We expect their light to brighten the future of our nation, and perhaps the world,” said Mike Carmel, master of Occident Lodge No. 48.

The program, originally for relatives of lodge members, was opened to graduates at Pacific County high schools a few years ago.

It is funded by the estate of the late Walt Twidwell, who lived in rural Brooklyn in northern Pacific County and was profiled in a 2018 Observer article headlined “The curmudgeon in the woods.” He served as master of four Masonic lodges in Pacific and Grays Harbor counties for a total of eight years, including three consecutive years at Ilwaco.

A career U.S. Navy veteran from the Vietnam era, and later a logger, he earned a significant court award for mesothelioma, contracted from exposure to dangerous chemicals during his lengthy service in engine rooms of ships. He died in late 2019 aged 82.

The Ilwaco Masons lodge merged in 2016 with lodges in Raymond and South Bend that had combined years ago. The fraternity, dating back to the 1600s in England, Scotland and Ireland, and possibly before that, encourages positive ethics and exists to help Masons improve themselves while having a community mission to help others. Its three main ventures support county youth.