News

May 7, 2008

Seminary shines at Best & Brightest

WILKES-BARRE – By any standard, Wyoming Seminary Preparatory School had a banner showing at The Times Leader’s annual Best & Brightest Awards Ceremony on Tuesday night at the F.M. Kirby Center.

Seminary had finalists in all but three of the 14 categories, which range from athletics to mathematics to music, and took the prize in six of them.

The awards honor the area’s top students for their academics and community involvement. And the competition is fierce, even in athletics.

Winner Kenneth Kufta stood out from the other 29 semifinalists not just because he’s been a two-sport athlete throughout high school, but because he’s graduating with the top grade-point average at Wyoming Valley West High School. He’s going to Penn State to major in either physics or engineering.

He won’t be playing Division I sports, but he’s made his peace with that. “That’s not exactly what they’re looking for on their basketball team,” he said of his 150-pound frame.

The awards aren’t just exciting for the student, either. Ann Hampton was there to watch her son Keith Thomas Hampton, a semifinalist in the Science & Environment category from Wyoming Valley West High School, walk across the stage.

“He’s being honored tonight, so I’m coming to support,” she said.

One of the first things she noticed was how the ceremony has evolved to include personality videos of finalists and live feeds to a massive television hovering above the stage. It certainly wasn’t that way when her older son, Matthew, walked the same stage six years ago. “They’ve really elaborated on the whole ceremony,” she said.

An addition the students likely could have done without was the montage of singing clips from video interviews, but Ann Hampton thought they were “different” and “neat.” They’re “Wyoming Valley American Idols,” she said.

The clips played while the students were organizing themselves downstairs before the ceremony, thus saving them from the embarrassment.

Or perhaps “mortification,” according to Doug Thomas, whose daughter from Tunkhannock Area High School was a finalist in the Civics category.

But any embarrassment his daughter, Kirby, felt was outweighed by the 50-inch TV she won. “I think it might be a little too big for my room,” she said while standing next to the screen, which was nearly as big as her. “I guess maybe I’ll put it in the basement.”

“That sounds nice,” her father interjected.

Times Leader Editor and Publisher Richard L. Connor opened and closed the night with comments, at one point congratulating the female contestants for maneuvering the stepped stage in high heels. It’s “great practice for maturing and getting older,” he said.

But while family, friends and teachers enjoyed seeing the students looking grown up, the ceremony was a rite of passage for the participants.

“It’s really just an honor,” Kufta said. “I’ve seen this in the newspaper the last 10 years of my life.”

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