Wolves Club scholarships awarded
May 21, 2009
Ellwood City Wolves Club held its 58th Annual Scholarship Dinner Sunday at the Ellwood City Saxon’s Club. Seventy-two members and guests were on hand as Master of Ceremonies Dr. Joseph Cioffi recognized the academic and extra curricular excellence of the nine recipients.
After the invocation delivered by the Rev. John Schmidt, and dinner catered by Dusty Minnocci, Riverside principal Ray Santillo presented the awards to the Riverside graduates and Lincoln teacher Rick DeLoia presented to Lincoln graduates.
The $4,000 scholarship was awarded to Lincoln senior Kayla Owens who will be studying at Allegheny College next fall.
Three $1,000 grants were awarded to Lincoln seniors Corrin Newton, who plans to attend Kent State, Ron Miller, who will attend Penn State Behrend, and Riverside senior Coulton Bunney, who will attend Stanford University.
Special $500 memorial grants in honor of Mrs. Helen Celli, Herman Petti Sr., the Wolves Club, and the Barberio Family, were awarded to Lincoln seniors Jocelyn Figurel and Jesse Dean and Riverside seniors Chelsea Whitlatch and Clayton Hessler respectively. An anonymous $500 grant was awarded to Jacob Hart of Lincoln High School.
Keynote speaker was attorney John M. Biondi, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Biondi of Ellwood City and a recipient of the 1986 Wolves Club scholarship. Biondi graduated from Gannon College and received his Juris Doctorate from Ohio Northern University in 1993. He presently serves as an attorney with the Zimmer Kunz Law Firm and is the current Chairman of the Community College of Beaver County Board of Trustees.
Biondi stressed the importance of education, highlighting that everything that happened in his life centered on his own education. He noted the need and desire for affordable, quality education and stressed that the scholarship recipients can help that come about by continuing to work hard and give back to their community after they graduate. He closed by emphasizing that education needs to be a top priority in our society, a decision the Wolves Club made when it established in 1947.
This year’s scholarship committee was chaired by Mike DeOtto who remarked that the awarding of these scholarships is what the Wolves Club was all about.
“We work hard for this all year and it’s a pleasure to reward the excellent students in our community,” he said.
“I want to congratulate the students who received these awards tonight. I look forward to seeing their continuing success,” added Tony Celli, club president.
|
Row 1 – Left to Right: Jocelyn Figurel, Jesse Dean, Corrin Newton, Kayla Owens and Chelsea Whitlatch, Dr. Joseph Cioffi, Master of Ceremonies
Row 2 – left to Right Rick Deloia, Presented Awards to Ellwood Students, Clayton Hessler, Jacob Hart, Ron Miller, Coulton Bunnet, Attorney John Biondi, Main Speaker and Ray Santillo, Presented Awards to Riverside Students.
|
|
