The following is reprinted from Row As One's Newsletter, Reach.

The Spirit of One
The following is a tribute to the late Patt McKee Wharton. Row As One has established the Patricia McKee Wharton Scholarship recognizing the spirit of one as an ongoing presence.

Patt (front row, middle) surrounded by the love and support of her
Row As One family.

Patt (yes, that's how she spelled it) and I, friends for almost twenty years, became sculling partners five years ago. She came to the sport late in her life, and found that she loved it.
Patt was an extraordinary person, with a wonderful sense of humor, a great love of nature, and an unfailing sense of adventure. She was a wife and the mother of a teenaged son. She was a lawyer specializing in domestic law. She was the first woman judge in the State of New Hampshire, and the first woman given the New Hampshire Bar Association's award for excellence in the practice of law. She was one of the most optimistic people I've ever known, and one of the most generous

When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in mid-December, we cried together for lots of reasons, one of them being that we might never get a chance to row together again. But as the weeks went by, Patt's fighting spirit returned and she assured me that we would be rowing this summer, and she would be going to camp as well. It wasn't until March that she finally admitted to herself, and to me, that she wouldn't be going.

We spent lots of time together during her last five months, talking and crying and laughing. On Mother's Day, a beautiful, sunny day, I went down to the slip where she was waiting. She sat in the stern of the double and I rowed us on the lake on which we had spent so many hours. When we got back, she went out by herself: 150 yards into the current, with a slow drift back to the slip, and an unforgettable smile of satisfaction and pleasure on her face.

In The Gift of Story Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, "none of us will live forever, the stories can. As long as one soul remains who can tell the story... the greater forces of love, mercy, generosity and strength are continuously called into being in the world... "

This scholarship is the story. It is the story of Row As One and of all of us, including Patt, who are a part of that. And it is a chance for other women to experience the strength and the spirit that make this camp what it is.

Over the two weeks of camp, the athletes donated over $600 to the scholarship, which is meant for women who are new to the sport (as rowing for four years or less) or returning to the sport after an absence of ten years or more.