Two recent island high school graduates have started down the path to a career in the heart of healthcare — nursing.

Jennifer LeRoy of Clinton and McKenzie Bailey-McIntyre of Oak Harbor, both 18, each received a $2,400 merit scholarship from Whidbey General Hospital Auxiliary: the  Charlotte Dowler Memorial Scholarship and the Wilma Patrick Memorial Scholarship, respectively.

LeRoy will enter Seattle University’s College of Nursing in September. Her exact area of expertise is undecided, but pediatric nursing is high on the list, she said. The seed to her motivation was planted when she took a class in sports medicine at South Whidbey High School.

“I’ve always been interested in the medical field; I took a class in sports medicine with Jim Christensen and that kind of spurred my interest in nursing. Also, I’ve never met a mean nurse,” Leroy said.

She also speaks Spanish and said she might take her bachelor of science in nursing to a country in Latin America or some place where there is an urgent need for healthcare workers.

“I love Spanish,” Leroy said. “I took six Spanish classes in high school and I’m not fluent yet, but I’m getting there.”

Bailey-McIntyre will finish her prerequisite course work at Skagit Valley College for one year, and then apply to a nursing program at an undecided college.

Her interest in medicine began when she 13 and watched with fascination as a surgeon pulled a foreign object out of her arm. It was then she decided that she would like to be a nurse. But also, her mom is a nurse, and she has been equally as inspiring, Bailey-McIntyre said.

Although Bailey-McIntyre was accepted to both Washington State University and Eastern Washington University, she decided to wait and look more thoroughly at her choices for nursing. One field that interests her is neo-natal intensive care nursing.

“I really like babies and I think it would be rewarding to help them, especially since I was in the neo-natal care unit as a baby,” she said.

But Bailey-McIntyre is also an avid true crime reader, and she’s thinking about possibly entering a nursing program in the forensic field. She’s always had a thing for science, she said, and thinks her personality is a good fit for nursing. Whatever path she takes, she hopes it leads her to her dream home in Texas where, as she says: “It’s hot and there are a lot of horses.”

To win the scholarship, students must be graduating seniors with at least a 3.0 GPA, have lived on Whidbey Island for three years, and have had either volunteer or work experience in healthcare. Two students island-wide are awarded the scholarships, which pay $600 each school year, either by semester or quarter.

Both scholarship recipients expressed their gratitude to the Whidbey General Hospital Auxiliary and the people who have inspired them along the way.

Applications for the Wilma Patrick Memorial Scholarship and the Charlotte Dowler Memorial Scholarship through the Whidbey General Hospital Auxiliary will be available at all island high school counseling offices in 2016. All island seniors who meet the criteria are eligible.

An earlier version of this story mixed up details of LeRoy and Bailey-McIntyre.