11yo Sterling Stout awarded Ivan Dawson Memorial Scholarship

The 2019 recipient of the Ivan Dawson Memorial Scholarship (IDMS) is 11-year Sterling Stout, born January 24, 2008.

He is the son of Mr Patrick A Stout and Mrs Adel Clyne Stout of Carrot Bay, Tortola, Virgin Islands. Sterling, a Virgin Islander is an athletic, fun-loving, observant, quick-thinking and respectful pre-teen. 

Sterling is a boy’s boy. His hobbies include any activity that makes him perceive or perspire: bike-riding, basketball, baseball, building (his own inventions) with his LEGO blocks, swimming, playing video games, playing with battery powered cars and boats – you name it – he does it! Yet he is an academic, as he loves to read and has a strong penchant for mathematics, trivia and word puzzles.

Sterling is the proper balance of ‘boy’ and ‘book’. He is a champion on and off the track – having developed a reputation for his impressive sprinting speeds in track and field (making the CUT Games BVI team in 2016) meanwhile still able to competently represent his school in Spanish Bowl competitions, and the finals in this year’s 2019 Spelling Bee.

It is easy to begin to see that whatever Sterling sets his hands to, he always endeavours to do his best, and being satisfied with this, never seeks to compare himself with others.

Off-campus, Sterling participates in the Ministry programme at his local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Incidentally, when off from school or his congregation, Sterling proves himself a strong fishing hand in his father’s fishing business, having proficiently developed the natural knack of line fishing since age four.

Simply put, the other adult fishing hands, cannot out-fish Sterling. Sterling is so passionate about fishing, that he rises, undeterred by the 4:30 am wakeup call, ready to head out to catch the ‘sur tide’.

Thus, this is the trajectory he sees himself taking as a life’s vocation – a full-time fisherman! After all, it is a beautiful life when you love what you do.

And you guessed it, one of his favourite foods is boiled fish, fungi and (a must!) dumpling! A happy, buoyant boy, Sterling is well known and loved in all social spheres he traverses – whether it that be his peers, his teachers, or his elders.

We trust that he will continue to live up to his name, with ongoing sterling performances through his secondary academic school years and beyond.