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May 21, 2008

WILKES-BARRE – Some want to be lawyers. Some want to be doctors. Others want to teach.

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Best & Brightest winner in the Music category is Rachel Ackerman from Wyoming Seminary. Presenting the award is Times Leader Editor and Publisher Richard L. Connor.

Pete g. wilcox/the times leader

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Outstanding high school students from throughout the region were honored Tuesday night during The Times Leader Best & Brightest Awards at the F.M. Kirby Center. Top awards were presented to students in 14 categories.

All have had a dramatic, but positive, impact on the community and their high schools. They have excelled in academics, participated in community service projects and made civic contributions.

Foreign language winner Sarah Vencloski of Wyoming Seminary plans to become a lawyer to work for human rights and international law. Her Latin and Spanish skills should come in handy.

For some students, their greatest reward is giving unselfishly.

“My serving has taught me you almost always receive more than you give,” Diana Smith, of Dallas, said. The graduate of Junior Leadership Wilkes-Barre won the Service to the Community award.

Another Wyoming Seminary student took home the Civics award.

Jeffrey Kratz credits his grandmother for turning him into a history lover, as he hopes to become an attorney and possibly a politician to improve the world.

“It is about using that position to help people and change things that need to be addressed,” Kratz said.

The Times Leader Editor and Publisher Richard L. Connor called all the students “winners … all wonderful members of our community” as he addressed the crowd during the introduction.

A panel of Times Leader employees and community judges reviewed 235 applications and interviewed the nominees before ultimately selecting the winners.

“It was so unexpected I didn’t have time to be nervous. I am so honored I made it this far,” Liz Bang of Wyoming Seminary said after being named the Arts winner.

Others believe that by winning the prestigious award they must strive even harder as they eventually will become the region’s and America’s future leaders.

“Now you have this award and you need to be more of a role model,” Lake-Lehman High School student Bethany Yamrick said after winning the Jerry Kellar Award for Journalism.

Kellar was a sports writer and columnist for The Times Leader from 1984 until his death in 2007. The award was presented by Kellar’s sister, Cheryl Kellar, and his aunt, Mary Shevock.

Yamrick professed she has always loved to write. First she was a creative writer, but then she was introduced to journalism in high school and is now editor-in-chief of her school paper.

Students in 12 of the categories each will receive a $1,500 scholarship, while the Service to the Community and The Jerry Keller Award for Journalism winners each will receive a $2,500 scholarship.

But it wasn’t just students walking away with awards.

Two Apple iPods, tickets to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees games and a limo ride to a Counting Crows & Maroon 5 concert in July were just some of the raffle prizes awarded to students and others in the audience.

List of winners:

• Art: Liz Bang, Wyoming Seminary

• Athletics: Kenneth Kufta, Wyoming Valley West

• Business Skills: Raina Connor, Wyoming Valley West

• Civics: Jeffrey Kratz, Wyoming Seminary

• Computers & Technology: IIya Volodarsky, Wyoming Seminary

• English & Literature: Anthony Melf, Holy Redeemer

• Foreign Language: Sarah Vencloski, Wyoming Seminary

• Journalism: Bethany Yamrick, Lake-Lehman

• Math: Diya Das, Wyoming Seminary

• Music: Rachel Ackerman, Wyoming Seminary

• Performing Arts: Kelsey George, Meyers