Sig and Helen Decker on a family Christmas vacation at San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, in December 2017. Helen wears one of her signature tie-dye pieces that she created.
The scholarship fund created to honor the memory of Helen and Sig Decker is a little different from most. In addition to the usual requirements of being a graduating high school senior who is going on to postsecondary schooling, applicants must have worked in commercial fishing or seafood processing.
It's recognition that the Deckers worked in the industry for years before they died in a car accident in Petersburg on July 28, 2020, at 19 and 21 years old, respectively.
The family made commercial fishing or seafood processing one of the eligibility requirements to target a different group of students and encourage them to give the scholarship a try, a "positive way to keep new young people coming into the seafood industry," according to mom Julie Decker.
This is the first year for the scholarship.
Decker said a lot of existing scholarships are aimed toward the best and the brightest who have the highest grades, which ends up being a small group who get all the scholarships. "This criteria will keep it open and available to maybe a slightly different segment than the traditional scholarships."
The scholarships are open to residents of Wrangell or Petersburg only.
Sig and Helen Decker grew up in Wrangell, commercial fishing aboard the McCrea during the summers with their parents, Gig and Julie Decker. In 2015, Sig started seining; Helen followed in 2019 and joined her brother in 2020 aboard the Vigilant.
"Fishing with them was pure joy," their captain, Bob Thorstenson Jr., said in July 2020. "I've never seen a brother and sister team, ever, in the world of fisheries."
The scholarship is funded from $206,390 raised by the nonprofit United Fishermen of Alaska, of which their parents Julie and Gig Decker are a part. Some of the money went to help with funeral expenses and $50,000 to the Wrangell Mariners' Memorial. The remaining funds were used to start the scholarship account, which is administered by the Anchorage-based Alaska Community Foundation.
"We wanted to put the rest to the scholarship to try to maintain their memories, their values and how they saw their life," Julie Decker said. "Keep that intact and going."
One thing different in the scholarship fund's inaugural year, she said, is that graduates from 2021 and 2022 can apply. "We just didn't get the scholarship up and running as quickly as we wanted to after the GoFundMe was set up. We wanted those graduates to be in on it as well," Julie Decker said.
The application window runs Feb. 3 to March 17. Two scholarships are set at $3,000 each year, with the opportunity to renew an additional year. The full requirements can be found at alaskacf.org by searching Sig and Helen Decker Memorial Scholarship, or at https://bit.ly/3tVG2Mp for the direct link.
Growing up in a small town and going off to big colleges in Southern California, Julie Decker said she and Gig were unsure how well their children would adjust. "They ended up helping support their friends in the college that they met. They were just really unique people. Amazing kids."
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