JULIE LANE PHOTO | Nurse Mary Kanarvogel listens as a Shelter Island student describes his needs during a meeting at her office Thursday morning. Nurse Mary, as she is widely known on the Island, has become a community resource for health care and other needs. Thanks to two distinguished scholarship awards, Nurse Mary will be finishing her master’s degree this spring without the burden of student loans.

Shelter Island School’s “Nurse Mary” — Mary Kanarvogel — is one of two recipients nationwide of a $1,500 scholarship award from the National Association of School Nurses. Ms. Kanarvogel is also one of two recipients statewide to receive a $1,000 scholarship from the Charlotte Grace Memorial Scholarship Fund awarded by the New York State Association of School Nurses.

The two scholarships will enable Ms. Kanarvogel to complete her studies this spring at Cambridge College in Boston without having to take student loans, she said.

Upon completion of her graduate degree, she will be qualified to teach health courses if there’s a need at Shelter Island School or  teach nurses if she ever retires from the school.

She and her husband, Mark Kanarvogel, a member of the Board of Education, have put two children through college.
“Now it’s my turn,” Ms. Karnavogel said. She started the intensive master’s degree program last summer, spending six weeks on the Boston campus, with classes from 9 to 5 six days a week with homework in between.

“It was awesome,” she said about the on campus experience during the summer.

For a full story on Nurse Mary’s scholarship wins and her experiences on the Island, see next Thursday’s Reporter.