The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2015 77 AFSA NEWS Presenting the 2015 AFSAMerit Award Winners On May 1, the American Foreign Service Association held its annual merit awards ceremony to announce the recipients of the 2015 AFSA Merit Awards. This year, AFSA awarded $45,250 to 22 high school seniors—all of whom are children of Foreign Service employees—for their out- standing achievements in academics, the arts and community service. Each winner received $2,500, and honorable mentions received $750 to $1,000 each. Of the 22 winners, 18 have parents employed with the Depart- ment of State, three with the U.S. Agency for International Development and one with the Foreign Commercial Service. (See pp. 78-79 for a complete list of the winners.) Aaron Hilton was chosen as this year’s art merit winner for his compelling ballet per- formances. The art honorable mention recipients—Sterling Butler, Colin Evans and Ellen Rank—won for their submis- sions in visual arts, music and creative writing, respectively. Their award-winning artwork can be seen at www.afsa.org/ scholar. The newly established Linda K. Fitzgerald Commu- nity Service Memorial Award was presented to Salma Badeh for her work mentoring with the Make a Difference Foundation in India and her volunteer service at a senior care facility and a library in Arlington, Texas. Students apply- ing for an academic merit award were evaluated using the following criteria: grade point average; standardized test scores; high-level coursework; a For- eign Service-themed essay; student activities; and special circumstances, if any. In addition to the academic merit and honorable mention winners, one essay was selected for the “Best Essay” award. This year’s “Best Essay” winner was Selena Everitt. (See p. 80 to read her essay, “Where Am I From?”) All art merit award appli- cants submitted work in one of the following categories: visual arts, musical arts, performing arts or creative writing. Each applicant was evaluated on the quality and creativity of the artwork, dedi- cation to their artistic pursuit and an essay. The AFSA Scholarship Program would like to recog- nize and thank the 24 judges who volunteered to serve on our review panels, and the 12 individuals and organiza- tions that have contributed merit award scholarships to the program. These special named awards are bestowed on students who received the highest scores from the judges. They include the John and Priscilla Becker Family Award; the Turner C. Cameron Jr. Memorial Award; two CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Federal Employee Program Awards; the Embassy Risk Management Award; the Linda K. Fitzger- ald Memorial Community Service Award; the John C. and Nancy S. Leary Memorial Award; two Joanna and Rob- ert Martin Awards; and the Donald S. Spigler Memorial and Maria Giuseppa Spigler Award. In addition to this year’s merit awards, AFSA will confer more than $218,000 in need- based financial aid scholar- ships ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 on 62 undergraduate students for the 2015-2016 academic year. Recipients will be announced in August. n —Jonathan Crawford, Scholarship Senior Associate AFSA President Robert J. Silverman gave opening remarks at this year’s merit awards ceremony as award winners wait to be recognized. Back row, from left: Eleni Smitham, Ellen Rank and Daniel Kostelancik. Front row, from left: Aaron Hilton, Tristan Froats and Colin Evans. AFSA/BRITTANYDELONG The AFSA Scholarship Fund’s endowment now stands at more than $7 million, all of which comes from generous donors. No AFSAmem- ber dues go toward the Scholarship Fund, yet this extremely robust, beneficial program has disbursed more than $4 million to 2,200 children of Foreign Service members over the last 25 years. For more information on the merit award pro- gram, applying for this benefit of AFSAmem- bership or contributing to the AFSA Scholarship Fund, visit www.afsa. org/scholar or contac t Lori Dec at dec@afsa. org or (202) 944-5504 .