RECIPIENTS of the Ella Olesen Scholarship met for a reunion in the Isle of Man at Christmas.

Every year the scholarship enables a female degree student from the Island to go to America to spend nine months at Idaho University.

The scholarship is named after the late Ella Olesen, a former registrar of the university, who died in 1985.

Her Manx ancestry - her mother Margaret Teare was born in Ballaugh and emigrated to America in 1890 - led her to gift the scholarship in 1971 and it is awarded annually to a female student who has been supported through her studies by the Department of Education and Children.

Melissa Bell, 21, has been awarded the scholarship for 2012 and will go the university this summer.

Pictured, from left, are current scholar Jennie Mitchell, Kelly Quaye (2001 scholar who lives in Philadelphia in America and who first suggested a reunion), Katie Taylor (scholar 2010) and Kirsty Pendlebury (scholar 2008 and annual reunion organiser). Helen Jackson (scholar 2006) attended too.