Rachelle Keyonnie, CDA, of Winslow selected for the 2022 Liz Koch Memorial Scholarship. Keyonnie has been a dental assistant at Winslow Indian Health Care Center for more than five years and has completed expanded functions training through Indian Health Services. Keyonnie is working toward an associate degree in arts at Northland Pioneer College with plans to focus on public health. She expects to graduate in spring 2023, and her scholarship award will go toward offsetting that cost. In her career, Keyonnie strives to continue mentoring dental assistant colleagues and aims to earn a bachelor’s degree and go further into the dental field. “The Liz Koch Memorial Scholarship funds will help me reach my goals,” Keyonnie says. “This is something I want more than anything, to make my family proud. I love dentistry and want to reach 50 years in the field — like my mother, who was a CDA certificant through DANB for 49 years.” The DALE Foundation launched the Liz Koch Memorial Scholarship in 2014 to honor the late Liz Koch, who served as Chief Operating Officer of DANB and the DALE Foundation before her untimely passing in 2011. This scholarship honors her dedication to encouraging and elevating dental assistants at all stages of their careers. The scholarship is open to all dental assistants, DANB certificants and other oral healthcare professionals, to support the professional development of dental auxiliaries. Scholarship recipients are selected based on their professional development plans for oral healthcare career development, and mentoring others in ways that promote oral health or the oral healthcare professions. Each recipient receives between $250 and $1,000, as well as access to three products of their choice from the DALE Foundation catalog. Scholarship funds can be used for professional development activities, such as continuing education courses, dental conferences, DANB certification renewal, and college courses.
