ICMA is happy to announce this year’s winners of the Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship, which was established in August 2019. This award is named in honor of Judy Lyn Kelsey, a pioneer in the local government management profession and long-time ICMA member, who generously gifted $109,000 to ICMA in the disbursement of her estate. With her gift, ICMA established the Local Government Management Fellowship Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship to assist emerging women leaders who have been accepted into the ICMA Local Government Management Fellowship program (LGMF), which places a fellow in a manager's or department head's office in a council-manager community.

This year's winners of the Judy L. Kelsey Award are Sydney Bannister and Risi Karim. 

Sydney Bannister serves as one of two Cookingham-Noll Fellows in Kansas City, Missouri, primarily in the budget office working on specialized budget office projects. She also coordinates and facilitates the Community Engagement University. She is on track to finish her master of public administration degree from the University of Kansas in May 2021. 

Risi Karim serves as a fellow for Edina, Minnesota, where she has supported a number of COVID-19-related projects for the city, and also serves as the project manager for reporting energy benchmarking data for city facilities. She is in her final semester of the master of public administration program at the University of Kansas. 

The scholarship, totaling $5,000 for each individual, is awarded to augment salary and defray personal expenses, including living expenses, student loan payments, or personal/professional development expenses. 

Scholarship recipients were selected by the Judy Kelsey Scholarship Selection Subcommittee of the Local Government Management Fellowship Advisory Board, which is made up of LGMF alumni. The committee read and scored essays from eight applicants on the criteria of demonstrated financial need, understanding of the award, demonstrated commitment to the local government profession, and a description of their intended use of the award.

Learn more about hostng a fellow at Local Government Management Fellowship.