Adams County Arts Council Names Two Students as Maggie Hoff Scholarship Recipients

Nina McCann has played private piano for 11 years, competes in four varsity sports, holds memberships in four academic clubs, and has personally rescued and rehomed more than 100 cats. At the All-County Arts & Music Festival on March 18, the Adams County Arts Council recognized her with the Maggie Hoff Scholarship, alongside North Adams senior Leeland Barry.

McCann, a West Union High School senior, brings a musical resume that spans choir, chamber choir, band, pep band, hand bells, winter percussion, steel drum band, school musicals, and All-County Band and Choir, with additional festival appearances at the MSU Choral Fest. On the athletic side, she competes in basketball, volleyball, golf, and cross country, and serves in National Honor Society, Beta, Student Senate, and Academic Team. She plans to study pre-medicine with a music minor at Ohio State University this fall.

Barry's record at North Adams is equally expansive. He has logged six years in band, four in choir, and five in musical theatre, with pit orchestra experience and membership in the Voices of Appalachia community choir. He has participated in multiple All-County and MSU festival events and competes in Academic Team and Mock Trial. After graduation, Barry plans to pursue vocal music education at Morehead State or Marshall University, with the goal of becoming a high school choir director.

The scholarship was established by Margaret Cook and Trygve Hoff in memory of their mother, Maggie Hoff, a longtime organist and music educator who taught at West Union High School, Waverly High School, and Ohio Northern University, and who directed the Liberty Cornet Band for 26 years. The $500 award is designed to recognize students who have excelled in school music programs and demonstrated a broader commitment to arts and community.

In a rural county where arts funding is more limited than in larger districts, the scholarship carries weight beyond its dollar amount. Barry's ambition to return to a classroom as a choir director mirrors the path Hoff herself walked for decades; the award, in that sense, is not just a recognition but a continuation.