Ruben Reyes wins Gates Millennium Scholarship

GEORGE - As her son Ruben remembered it, friends stopped by, a little worried about Maria Reyes. She wasn't at work, wasn't at home, wasn't answering her phone.

Then the police car pulled up outside.

It was fall, Ruben Reyes said, two or three days into his freshman year at Quincy High School. It was apple harvest, onion and potato harvest too, a lot of trucks on the roads around town.

It appeared Maria Reyes didn't see the truck when she tried to cross an intersection.

The loss of wife and mother was bad enough for the Reyes family, but there was a cold hard fact of economic reality that had to be faced. The family's income suddenly was cut in half, and among other things that meant the Reyes kids would have to find their own way to college.

Ruben Reyes already knew he wanted an education, he said. He'd worked in the orchard with his family since he was 9, and he knew it wasn't for him. "It helped me understand what an education really was," he said.

His mom's death just reinforced his determination, he said. "That made me want to try really hard in school."

His dad was skeptical about the value of an education, he said, so Ruben figured he would have to work it out for himself. "I decided I was going to do it, no matter what," he said. By his junior year he knew how he wanted to proceed, he said.

The Running Start program allows high school students to take college classes and get college credit. Running Start pays tuition, but students are responsible for buying books and getting to and from school. In addition, some courses require placement tests, and Ruben wanted to qualify for the college-level courses in everything. "I studied for a long time," he said.

Reyes qualified for the program, but Quincy doesn't have a college. He'd have to figure out how to get from Moses Lake or Wenatchee, and buy the books.

Ruben enrolled at Big Bend Community College, got a job at a sandwich shop in George, and moved on to other jobs around Quincy. He tutored at the junior high. "At one point I was working three jobs," he said. Along with that he had classes at Quincy High School and BBCC.

He was working along a science and biology track, the first step to his goal of becoming a dentist. That meant subjects like high school and college calculus and chemistry. "Those are demanding classes," he said.

And a lot of work. "I was working, doing school and that was pretty much it," Reyes said.

Ruben graduated from Quincy High School June 7, and BBCC Friday. With his associate of science degree he's got a head start on the next step, which is a degree from the University of Washington and then dental school. And he won't have to work three jobs, or maybe any job, once he gets there.

Reyes was one of 40 students statewide to receive a "classical diversity" scholarship from the university. But he might not need that either. "I got the Gates Millennium Scholarship, too," he said.

The Gates scholarship will pay all his undergraduate expenses, and give him $20,000 toward his post-graduate studies. Ruben said he sent in the application but wasn't optimistic. "I was very surprised, and so happy. Coming from Quincy I didn't think I had a chance."

This summer he will work as a paid intern on the UW's genome project, dealing with genetics and biology.

He said he would tell kids who are working hard to get ahead to stay on course. "Don't give up on your dreams, because they're attainable," he said. It's important to keep those goals in mind, when the going gets tough and there are other, easier things to do. "One wrong friend, one wrong experience, you can lose everything."

It was a lot of work, hard work, and not a lot of time for fun, but on balance it was the right thing to do, Ruben said. "It's been worth it. Totally."