Gold Award Girl Scout Bailey Stokes of Buena Vista is the 2018 recipient of the Johanna Farrar Girl Scout Memorial Scholarship. She earned her Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts, earlier this summer for creating a nature program that will be sustained by teachers in her community.
Johanna Farrar’s husband and children started this scholarship in 2015 to celebrate all of her accomplishments, particularly those within the Girl Scout community. Born in London, England and raised in a small village on the south coast of England, Johanna was a Girl Guide in her childhood. She was also the youngest ever to have achieved the Queen’s Guide Award at that time, the English equivalent of the Girl Scout Gold Award. After earning a software engineering degree from Loughborough University, Johanna moved to New Jersey to work for Bell Labs. In 1985, she accepted a position with FedEx in Colorado Springs, where she met and married Gene Farrar in 1990. Johanna and Gene lived and worked in the Colorado Springs area, moving to Monument in 1992 when their oldest daughter, Hannah, was born. In 1995, after their second daughter, Rachel, was born, Johanna retired from a successful career as a Technical Advisor at FedEx for an even more successful and rewarding career as a dedicated full-time mother.
Johanna introduced her daughters to Girl Scouts at the first opportunity and became a local leader in Monument, then again after relocating to Buena Vista. When Johanna first arrived in Buena Vista, she learned Girl Scouts had all but disappeared in Chaffee County. Johanna believed so strongly in the values and skills that Girl Scouts develops, it became a passion to reestablish Girl Scouts for girls in the high Rockies. Known to many of her friends as the “Engergizer Bunny” because of her seemingly never-ending energy and indomitable spirit, Johanna provided the leadership and drive to rejuvenate Girl Scouts in the valley. Now, for the first time, there are troops for all ages. Additionally, Johanna loved the outdoors, including skiing, hiking, biking, mountain climbing, and especially gardening – passions she loved to share and instill in young women.