A Capital Region BOCES Career & Technical Education (CTE) student who is forging a career in welding is the recipient of the Evan M. Schwarz Helping Hand Memorial Scholarship.

The $500 award was presented to Voorheesville High School senior Cheyenne Watkins by the Schwarz family, teacher Don Mattoon and CTE administrators during a May 21 ceremony at the CTE Albany Campus.

Watkins is attending Modern Welding School in the fall and plans to join the Ironworkers Local 12 Union Hall.

The CTE student said she was inspired to pursue a career in welding by the chief of the Onesquethaw Fire Department, where she is a member.

“My fire chief [Mike Salisbury] owns his own welding company and always told me about his work, and he inspired me to take welding here,” she said.

Watkins said she was further driven into welding by a desire to prove that women can succeed at anything they put their minds to.

“I chose the CTE welding program for two reasons—to learn how to weld and become successful and to prove that men aren’t the only ones that can be successful in a blue-collar trade,” Watkins said.

The Evan M. Schwarz award was established in 2011 to honor Evan Schwarz, who studied welding at Capital Region BOCES while a Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School junior and senior, earned straight A’s and has been described by his former teacher Mike Todd as “highly motivated, artistic and caring — just the type of student you’d want to have in your classroom.” After graduation in 2006, Evan worked at the former Super Steel plant in Schenectady and earned membership in the ironworkers union.

Evan Schwarz’s parents John and Donna Marie Schwarz present the award twice annually.

School Counselor Cosimo Tangorra said Watkins was honored as a “great example of success for future CTE students, as well as her peers.”

Watkins said BOCES has been like a family for her.

“My favorite part of BOCES is how close I have gotten to my classmates and how we all get along. And the bond we create with the teachers is amazing,” she said. “My time in the program has been the best two years of my life, and it has taught me so much.”