Erica Gbekel of West Windsor received the West Windsor-Plainsboro News High School South Scholarship. She begins her college experience this summer at Xavier University of Louisiana with classes in public speaking and language arts.
Born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn, she moved to West Windsor with her family five years ago. “It was a big change from the busy city,” she says. “My parents chose the area for the school district.”
Her mother, Diana, is a registered nurse at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in Hamilton. Her father, Eric, is an accountant who commutes by train to New York City. She has a younger brother, Marcus, and a younger sister, Danielle.
Gbekel (pronounced Beckel) has been a volunteer at Princeton Hospital and a Sunday school teacher at St. David the King. She worked on the yearbook at South. She also received a scholarship from the African-American Club. Her plans are to major in biology. “The scholarships will help further my career,” she says.
Joanna Chapman received the WWP News scholarship at High School North. Born and raised in Plainsboro, she will major in political science at Seton Hall University in the fall. She is working at Super Fresh this summer.
She attended Wycoff, Millstone, and Community Middle schools, as well as North. A choir member since elementary school she was able to travel to London. She was in the ensemble cast for “High School Musical,” “Camelot,” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” as well as dramas. “Music and theater are something I really enjoy doing but I’m not making a career out of it,” she says. “Dancing is not my strongest but I can hold my own.”
Her sisters, Robin Januszewski, 32, lives in Pennsylvania with two children; and Kristin Januszewski, 30, graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and works at Eden. They both graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (now South). Her mother, Betsy Scott, is a registered nurse.
“The scholarship was a huge surprise and I was really honored to receive it,” she says. “It is a huge weight lifted off our shoulders and will help pay for books.”
