Law student wins elite scholarship

University of Adelaide student Sarah Dowd is the sole South Australian recipient of a $45,000 Charles Hawker Scholarship in 2012 to help fund her accommodation and studies.

Nineteen-year-old Sarah, who is enrolled in her first year of Law and International Studies and is a resident of St Mark's College, is one of only two Charles Hawker Scholars selected in Australia this year.

The former Darwin resident, who grew up in a multicultural environment in the Northern Territory, is passionate about Indigenous education and hopes to use her University of Adelaide double degree to combine her interests of law, international relations and Indigenous affairs.

South Australian-born Sarah moved to Darwin at an early age and studied at Kormilda College before completing her secondary education as a boarder at Walford Anglican School for Girls in 2010, gaining an ATAR of 99.25.

Sarah was captain of the softball team and represented Walford in swimming, water polo, netball and the triathlon. She was also a class representative and trained as a peer leader.

Sarah took a gap year in 2011, working in the United Kingdom at Glebe House in Norfolk, an independent co-educational day and boarding school.

The Hawker Scholarships are one of the most generously privately funded scholarships available to undergraduate students in Australia, with almost $4 million awarded to 96 young people since 1991.

The scholarship perpetuates the memory of one of Australia's most respected pastoral pioneers, Charles Hawker, who served with distinction in the First World War and went on to become a distinguished scholar and leading figure in the Federal Parliament prior to his tragic and untimely death in an aircraft accident in 1938.

The other Charles Hawker recipient for 2012 is Patrick Clark from Bendigo, Victoria.