Kirsten Herd Receives Bill Dorsey Scholarship for the Barbara Ingram School

Barbara Ingram School for the Arts High School senior Kirsten Herd received this year’s Bill Dorsey Scholarship for the Barbara Ingram School (BISFA), a component fund of the Community Foundation of Washington County MD. After winning a People's Choice Award in 2008, Reverend Janice Dorsey named the endowment established in her honor after her husband, creating the Bill Dorsey Scholarship. This scholarship provided a $570 grant to Herd to help offset the cost of materials, supplies and other items directly related to her arts discipline.

“My parents were always passionate about the arts – from visual to performing arts, they saw the value it could bring to our students,” said Ed Dorsey, son of the late Bill Dorsey.

Herd studies dance at BISFA and has aspirations to attend Montclair University in New Jersey, the University of Arts in Philadelphia PA, or the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore MD.

She trains in many forms of dance including ballet/pointe, modern, jazz, contemporary, and occasionally hip hop. She also attends Dancin Time Studios while juggling many extracurricular activities.

Herd plans to use the funds to help pay for dance materials such as new shoes (tap shoes, turners, jazz shoes, etc.) that she will use for classes and competitions. Additionally, she plans to use it to help pay for competition fees at her studio and also costumes for her cast involved in her senior dance piece.

“I chose to apply to and attend Barbara Ingram School for the Arts because I began to dance seriously in middle school along with musical theatre and color guard. Throughout all the performing arts I’ve done, I fell in love with dance. I can't imagine my life without it and it gave me a way to cope with stress and other things happening in my life,” said Herd.