About the Ryan & Collin Petitte Memorial Scholarship

We want to provide you with a little bit of background on the Ryan & Collin Petitte Memorial Scholarship Fund. In doing so, we hope to give you a better understanding of why we organized this scholarship and its link to the adventure challenge.

Annually, we raise money for the scholarship with the Ryan Petitte Capital Adventure Challenge.

Now in its seventeenth year (it started in 2002 before Ryan passed away), the Capital Adventure Challenge is a two-day, fourteen-stage, loosely “athletic” competition organized with a group of friends. It’s about friendship, fun, and remembrance. Competitors reach out to their broader network of friends and colleagues to raise money for the fund.

And representatives from each group of Adventure Challenge participants – working with an advisory board that includes friends and family of Ryan and Collin – help to select the next year’s scholarship recipient.

About Ryan & Collin Petitte

Ryan Petitte graduated from Ukiah High School, in Ukiah, CA in 1990; his younger brother Collin in 1997. Ryan and Collin moved to town with their parents from the state of Hawaii in the summer of 1987, prior to his sophomore year. My twin brother and I first met Ryan on the football field. He saw the junior varsity team practicing and raced over with cleats in hand from his house across the street. The beginning of an everlasting friendship.

Ryan died unexpectedly from an extremely rare genetic disorder in November of 2003. His death was preceded by his younger brother Collin’s more than a year prior from the same condition. I could spend pages describing them both to you. Let it be enough to say they are greatly missed and loved by family and friends.

In the year following Collin’s death, Ryan and I talked about his intention to start up a scholarship in his brother’s name. He didn’t describe the specifics, but made it clear he wanted to pay tribute to his sibling and keep his memory alive. After Ryan’s passing, it became my and my brother’s goal – with his family – to see the scholarship realized.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,

Ben Milder

Founder

(Donate Here)

Recipients of the Ryan and Collin Petitte Memorial Scholarship

Scholarship winners receive a $2,000 scholarship for their first year of school and $1,000 a year annually for books in years two, three and four.

Thanks to strong support from an incredibly generous group of contributors, the first Ryan and Collin Petitte Memorial Scholarship was awarded in May of 2006 to Ryan Keiffer. Ryan attended and graduated from the University of California, Davis, which was Ryan Petitte’s alma mater.

The second scholarship was awarded in 2007 to Taylor Todd. Taylor graduated spring 2010 from Oregon State University, which was the university Collin attended. The 2008 scholarship was awarded to Brendan Kucz, who graduated in the spring of 2012 from U.C. Davis. In 2009, we awarded the fourth scholarship to Garrett Edwards, who graduated in 2013 from Humboldt State University in Northern California. In 2010, we awarded the fifth scholarship to Elizabeth Graham-Williams, who in 2014 completed her final year at Oregon State University. In 2011, we awarded the sixth scholarship to Shelby Marie Killen, who graduated from U.C. Davis. We awarded the 2012 scholarship to Reef Larwood, attending Montana State. The 2013 scholarship went to Maria Vega, to attend the University of California, Santa Cruz. In June of 2014, we awarded the ninth RCP Scholarship to Mariah Larwood, who graduated from Boston College. In 2015, we awarded the tenth scholarship to Derian Palmerin, who is attending Ohio Wesleyan University. In 2016, we awarded the 11th scholarship to Charles Lucchesi, who is entering his third year at U.C. Davis. The 12th scholarship was awarded in the Spring of 2017 to Jordan Berg, now in her sophomore year at UC Santa Barbara. And, in June of 2018, the thirteenth scholarship was awarded to Ruby Telfer to attend U.C. Davis. We could not have hoped for better candidates in our thirteen years awarding the scholarship. Each of them - Ryan, Taylor, Brendan, Garrett, Elizabeth, Shelby, Reef, Maria, Mariah, Derian, Charles, Jordan and now Ruby - truly exemplify the type of individual we had hoped to recognize with the scholarship. Scholarship winners receive a $2,000 scholarship for their first year of school and $1,000 a year annually for books in years two, three and four.

The 2019 scholarship will be awarded in June of next year.

Additional information on the scholarship is also available on the Web site of the Community Foundation of Mendocino County.

Feel free to contact me directly with any questions about the scholarship fund. I can be reached at (703) 731-9245 or ben.milder@gmail.com.

Selection Committee

• Ben Milder

• Tom Milder

• Alan Petitte

• Hilary Petitte

• Diana VanDerByl

• Adventure Challenge Participants (1 full vote)