Grand Valley Power announced the recipients of its 2025 scholarship and youth-leadership programs. Its selection committees chose nine students to receive college scholarships, three students to attend the 2025 Cooperative Youth Leadership Camp and Washington D.C. Youth Tour, one recipient of the CMU Tech Electric Lineworker Scholarship.

Grand Valley Power awarded a total of $22,000 in scholarships for the 2025-26 school year. Since 1996, Grand Valley Power has awarded more than $314,000 to students who are continuing their education. Scholarships are funded by unclaimed CashBack Credits.

The 2025 scholarship and youth program recipients are as follows:

• Homeschool student Garrett Draper received the Jack Broughton Colorado Mesa University Scholarship – $2,000 (renewable and $8,000 total over four years).
• Palisade High School graduate Siena Guzman-Newton received the Matt Williams STEM Scholarship – $1,500 (renewable to any accredited college or university and $6,000 total over four years).
• Plateau Valley High School graduate Payton Wilkerson received the CMU Tech Scholarship – $1,500 one-time award for a student attending CMU Tech.
• Rhett Ward, a 2023 Palisade High School graduate, received the CMU Tech Electric Lineworker Scholarship – $2,000 one-time award for enrollment in the CMU Tech Electric Lineworker program (open to Mesa County residents).
• Six students – Lucas Lopes (Palisade High School), Callie Mitchell (Fruita Monument High School), Lia Bunnell (Grand Junction High School), Karyssa Daugherty (Central High School), Lynessa Asplund (Palisade High School) and Jonathan Overbye (Fruita Monument High School) – received a Grand Valley Power Scholarship – a one-time $1,500 scholarship (per person) that is awarded to students who plan to attend an accredited institution of post-secondary education.
• Overbye also was selected to participate in the 2025 Washington D.C. Youth Tour, an all-expenses-paid trip that allows students to experience American history firsthand and meet our nation’s leaders.
• Hunter White (Plateau Valley High School) and Madison Shaver (Fruita Monument High School) are going to be seniors this fall and were chosen to be the 2025 Cooperative Youth Camp participants. They will participate in an all-expenses-paid trip to the Cooperative Leadership Camp in Clark, CO. Only 100 students are selected from Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Wyoming to attend.