Priscilla Cruz Toves Perez was born on Guam just before World War II and was one of 12 children of Pedro T. Toves and Maria I. Cruz Toves, Anigua, Guam. She was an active military wife, and a devoted, discerning, hardworking, and loving mother of seven.
In addition to being a wife and mother, she worked as a sales/home decorator with one of the major national retail department stores and gained added interpersonal relationships with key colleagues and retail customers of varying backgrounds. She enjoyed decorating, floral arranging, and hosting family and social gatherings. She spoke CHamoru (Chamorro) as her first language and was especially proud of her cultural heritage and Guam History.
She was a teacher of over 30 years having worked for the Guam Public School System and the Academy of Our Lady of Guam. As a teacher, she drew on her personal experiences throughout the family’s military tours within the communities of the Midwest, Southern, and Eastern states and overseas in Europe. She connected well with Middle & High School students, school staffs, and with administrators, initiated special program support from available federal grants for all students, including non-English speaking ones. Her penchant dedication for diligent learning of students was her perceptive application of innovative regard of the essence of encouragement and determination, knowledge of subject and relationship of respect with each other and each other’s cultures, as well as potentials for their future endeavors. She visibly cared reaching out to the educational needs and potentials of the student and of her institution’s goals, too.
The call to become a teacher was her special personal outlook of dire needs of young peoples to be a part of the People in the World with themselves. To assist them to be well aware and stay focus, and to knowingly be prepared to make whatever the future action to survive, for themselves and their families. Her family established this scholarship to honor her and her deep commitment to teaching while celebrating cultural diversity and instilling hopes of future legacies in the students with the World.