TAHOE CITY, Calif. — Tahoe Youth Ballet awarded $3,000 in scholarships to six promising young dancers, thanks to funding from the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation and the generous contributions from individual donors to start the Maggie Banks Memorial Scholarship fund.

Dancers were chosen, confidentially, on merit and need, after extensive evaluations from a volunteer review panel. Three full scholarships in the amount of $750 and three additional partial scholarships of $250 were awarded to Maia Baehr, Sierra Bertini, Haley Perkins, Kyla Pierce, Bryce Walsh and Heather Wencke.

“Maggie gave me a scholarship to study at Nevada Festival Ballet School when I joined at 12,” said Christin Hanna, Tahoe Youth Ballet’s founding artistic director. “She also called in many favors to help my career as a student, recommending me to the Joffrey and American Ballet Theater schools on scholarship. It is because of her dedication to her dancers and her belief in me as a young artist that I had a professional career. Without her, I wouldn’t be a dancer, and there wouldn’t be a Tahoe Youth Ballet.”

See Tahoe Youth Ballet’s dancers in action at their annual Winter Repertory Season, Friday and Saturday, March 14 and 15, at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach. For more information, visit http://www.tahoeyouthballet.com.