RUMFORD – The Rumford Hospital Loan/Scholarship Committee has selected six health care students to receive education funds for the coming year.

Lisa Hodgkins of Roxbury, coordinator of the Rumford Hospital oncology unit, will continue studies toward her bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Southern Maine. A registered nurse since 1995, she intends to pursue a master’s degree after obtaining her BSN.

Renee St. John of Norway will attend Central Maine Medical Center’s School of Radiology. She has been a medical transcriptionist for more than 20 years. She hopes to specialize in ultrasound.

Leonard Hall of Peru will pursue a bachelor of nursing degree at the University of Maine Orono beginning this fall. A 2006 graduate of Dirigo High School, he is the son of Rumford Hospital’s Operating Room Nurse Manager Becky Hall.

Lindsey Milledge of Dixfield, who graduated from Dirigo High School this year, will begin studies toward a bachelor of nursing degree at the University of New Hampshire this fall. Her mother is on the staff of Western Maine Internal Medicine.

Receiving funds for the second consecutive year are Ashley Cihak, Rumford, who attends the University of Maine Fort Kent where she studies nursing, and Kristen Nicols, Mexico, who is slated to graduate from St. Joseph College School of Nursing in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree.

Awards to students accepted into college or technical school programs are made as loans; however, the loans are forgiven if students work at Rumford Hospital for 12 months or the Rumford Community Home for six months after completing their studies. The loans are also forgiven if there is no opening at the hospital or home for the student’s specialty.

Scholarship loans are $2,000 a year up to a total of $8,000 for a four-year program. Students must successfully complete the first semester of each year before the loan is paid.

“More students have returned to Rumford Hospital to work in recent years,” said Jane Aube, director of nursing at the hospital. “I always tell our loan/scholarship recipients that nursing and other health care occupations are almost guaranteed jobs. There is always a need for well trained health care workers.”