Pharmacy student wins Erin Bursey Memorial Award
Memorial fourth-year power Adrienne Penney is the 2013-14 recipient of the Atlantic University Sport (AUS)'s Erin Bursey Memorial Award, given to the women's volleyball student-athlete who best exhibits outstanding achievements in three areas: volleyball, academics and community involvement.
Penney, a pharmacy student from St. John's, N.L., is currently serving as past president of the MUN Pharmacy Society and has led and taken part in many pharmacy advancement events such as Pharmacy Awareness Week.
She has been a pharmacy yearbook committee member and editor for the past four years and is serving as a grad committee member for 2014.
Penney has taken part in numerous fundraising events for charity including the AIDS Walk for Life, CIBC Run for the Cure and the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life. She led and coordinated the 'Home for Dinner' program for the Ronald McDonald House this past February and sold bracelets to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation at Memorial's 'Go Pink' event this past January.
She has led the 'Christmas Families' fundraising event for her class since 2010. Pharmacy students fundraise to buy toys and other items for underprivileged families in St. John's at Christmas time.
Further to her fundraising activities, Penney has been involved in the local community through coaching and participating in development camps for junior high and high school students with the Memorial volleyball team each summer.
On the court, Penney played in all 16 of Memorial's games this season and all 60 of their sets. She was fourth overall in the conference in block assists with 36, seventh in total blocks (50) and seventh in blocks per set (0.83).
"Adrienne is an outstanding student who's just completing her pharmacy degree and will start her career in New Brunswick in May," said Sea-Hawks head coach Bill Thistle. "She has been an outstanding leader for the Sea-Hawks and the pharmacy school. She has a beautiful heart, a mature mind and has a positive impact on all she's touched. We will miss her, but we know that our loss will be someone else's gain."
This award was recently renamed in honour of former Memorial Sea-Hawks student-athlete Erin Bursey. Bursey, a two-time CIS Academic all-Canadian and a captain with Sea-Hawks women's volleyball team, passed away last year following a pedestrian vehicle accident in St. John's.
Penney will be the AUS nominee for the CIS Therese Quigley Award. Acadia's Lori-Beth MacEwen (2002-03 and 2003-04) and Mount Allison's Megan Toews (2001-02) are the only Atlantic conference recipients of the CIS award.