The Detroit Tribune

UNCF 1961 Lasker Fellowship Winners

NEW YORK - Miss Wilfreta Gourdine and Miss Connie Jo Lindley are the winners of the 1961 Florina Lasker Fellowships, W. J. Trent Jr., United Negro College Fund executive director, announced here this week.

Miss Gourdine is a senior honor student at Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va.

Miss Lindley is a senior honor student at Huston-Tillotson College, Austin, Texas.

The Fellowships were established in 1949 by the trustee of the late Florina Lasker's estate to "aid the education of Negro women." Candidates are chosen from the outstanding women senior students attending the Fund's 32 member colleges. The grants are intended to cover major expenses for one year of graduate study. Each winner is free to choose her own field of study and select any suitable university.

Miss Gourdine has chosen the University of Chicago, the department of meteorology, for advanced studies in the atmospheric sciences. A chemistry and mathematics major at Hampton, Miss Gourdine developed an interest in space science when she took a course in astronomy this year.

"My father believed strongly in encouraging our talents and in uncovering latent potential," Miss Gourdine says. "So I was enrolled in a dancing class and in a piano class. I showed absolutely no talent in either. It was not until junior high school that I finally showed some special aptitude-and that was for science."

Miss Gourdine was valedictorian of her class at Norcom High School, Portsmouth, and won two scholarships which enabled her to enter Hampton. She was the recipient of one award on the basis of a Cooperative Intercollegiate Examination (administered by UNCF); and also an award for excellence in a science competition sponsored by the Virginia Conference of Science Teachers.

An honor student throughout her years at Hampton, she is currently second ranking woman in her graduating class. Miss Gourdine has augmented her scholarship grants by working for two years as a laboratory assistant in the chemistry department. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Gourdine Sr., 54 Manly St., Portsmouth, Va.

Brown University, Providence, R. I., is Miss Lindley's choice for graduate study in English literature. She plans to teach college English.