Today, 12 teens of active-duty LVMPD police and corrections officers were each awarded the Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo Memorial Scholarship from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Foundation.
Presented Tom Kovach, Executive Director of the LVMPD Foundation, the $5,000 scholarship is intended to offset the costs of tuition, books and fees for the college or vocational school of each recipients’ choice.
The scholarship program, named in the memory of LVMPD officers, Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo, who were tragically killed in an ambush in 2014, is now in its seventh year. This year’s recipients were chosen from a pool of 60 applicants. Scholarship funds are raised by the LVMPD Foundation through the generosity of individual and corporate donors. To date, the Foundation has granted scholarships totaling more than $370,000 to 74 students.
This year’s recipients include Angelo Bevilacqua III, Viviana Cera, Nyah Chio, Troy Connell, Alexa Darcy, Xavier Grabowski, Jaylynn McCarthy, Charles Mennig, DeShone Myles, Jr., Ceff Orfrecio, Jonathon Perez and Manuel Walt.
“It is a privilege to award well-deserving students from the law enforcement community with scholarships to help them advance their education, helping to better prepare them for their next chapter,” said Kovach. “This scholarship program is also an especially meaningful way to honor the lives of Officers Beck and Soldo, keeping alive their memory through the accomplishments of the next generation. We are grateful to the program’s donors, and we congratulate this year’s recipients.”
The scholarships were presented at a ceremony on the site of the LVMPD Reality Based Training Center, which is currently under construction at 7370 E. Carey Road, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89156. Designed to provide first responders with the nation’s most sophisticated highly technical reality-based tactical training, the LVMPD Reality Based Training Center is a state-of-the-art facility that will offer first responders access to unprecedented training capabilities with a focus on training for active shooter incidents, including those with mass casualties, as well as training for natural disasters. The Training Center is funded entirely by private donations and is scheduled to open this fall. It will be accessible to more than 60 law enforcement and first responder agencies throughout the state of Nevada.