Sweet Sixteen. That’s the average age of the girls who will be stepping up to the plate on April 13 for the annual three-day girls’ softball tournament at Winston Wells ball park on St. John.
It’s also the age of the Ruby Rutnik Memorial Softball Tournament, which has now provided more than $122,000 in scholarships, primarily to college-bound girls from St. John and young athletes from the winning teams.
This year the competition looks intense, as teams from St. Thomas and St. Croix try to wrest the title from the girls’ team from Elmore Stout High School on Tortola which has won the championship for the past three years.
Since the girls’ varsity softball season will just be getting underway, some of the territory’s teams will be playing each other for the first time this year. The three teams from St. Thomas are Ivanna Eudora Kean High School, Charlotte Amalie High School, and a combined team from the private schools. The teams from St. Croix are Central High School and the Education Complex. And of course, the Tortola team, coached by Terry Chinnery, plans to come back to defend its title.
The tournament was founded by Andy Rutnik and Janet Cook-Rutnik, whose daughter Ruby was a star pitcher at Antilles School known for her wicked windmill pitching style. Ruby was in her senior year at American University when she died in a car accident on an icy December night in 1996.
Establishing a softball tournament a few months later to commemorate Ruby’s birthday on April 9 was a way of channeling their grief into opportunity, as well as bringing together Virgin Islanders to cheer for their young female athletes.
For the last several years, $10,000 in scholarship money has been awarded annually for a winning team member, two college-bound girls from St. John, and a student at the Gifft Hill School, which Ruby attended when it was first established as the Pine Peace School.
This year, the tournament will give the Gifft Hill School a scholarship in honor of Elaine Penn, the tireless organizer of the Pan Dragons, the St. John youth steel band, which has operated the food concession for the tournament as a fundraiser.
The tournament raises money by selling innings at $100, $700 a game or $2,500 a scholarship.Individuals or businesses that wish to sponsor an inning can mail a check (payable to RRSF, Inc.) to Rutnik, P.O. Box 348, St. John, VI 00831, or send an email to andrewrutnik@gmail.com.
More than 40 awards have been given since Tessa (Williams) Telly, a graduate of IEK High School, won the first academic scholarship in 1997. Now a health communications specialist at Georgetown University, Telly was recently back on St. John for a visit.
Kristin Maize, the 2001 winner, worked for the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park and is now completing her master’s in environmental management at Duke University. Nyeisha Smalls, the 2002 winner, is now an educator on St. John.
The tales of the winners’ success continue to re-energize the Rutnik family and the dedicated volunteers. Scholarship applications for the 2012 awards will be available at Connections on St. John and from school guidance counselors.