Former Concord High School Basketball Players Start Scholarship Honoring Fallen Teammates

CONCORD, NH — Members of the Concord High School girls basketball team, who were seniors during the 2002 season, have set up a scholarship to honor two of their fallen classmates and help future girls get through college.

The teammates — Beth (Hemingway) Corkum, Katherine Little, Angela Giles, Andrea (Crosby) Johnson, and Trish (Hogan) Morgan, have set up the We Above Me scholarship for a student as well as a May 19 3v3 fundraising tournament at the school to raise money for the scholarship. The scholarship will honor Cedra Christiansen and Katherine Trice, two other teammates who lived in Concord and died during the past four years. Christiansen died after a battle with cancer in June 2019; Trice died in January.

Corkum said the players were all still very close. It was, however, she said, challenging for the friends to lose two women connected to them at such a young age. Like all adults, 20-plus years from high school, they have families and young children, too. When they came together for Trice’s funeral, they agreed to work together to do something positive for girls.

Corkum is a school counselor at Bow High School and got to thinking about all the different scholarships and memorials that were happening. She reached out to CHS, inquired about the criteria to create a scholarship, terms, and conditions, and then filled out the paperwork.

The teammates are starting small — a single, $500 scholarship for a girl who plays three-plus years in at least one sport and defines the “we not me” spirit of being involved with a team. The student should volunteer, be involved in human services, and focus on a human services-related career like Trice and Christiansen were.

“While there is an athletic focus,” Corkum said, “she doesn’t need to be the star; she has to be a good all-around player on the team.”

To raise money for the first scholarship, the women are holding three versus three tournaments at 5 p.m. on May 19 at Concord High School. Teams can register for $30. There will be various age groups competing. The tourney will be set up like a March Madness bracket, but the specifics have not been set up yet. They will also be raising money via admission to the event.

“We wanted to find a way to give back to the school,” she said.

Corkum said more than one scholarship could be available depending on the applicant pool and the money raised.

For more information about the scholarship, click here. To register and participate in the tournament, click here.

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