The Kiwanis Club of Phil-Mont last week honored two local college students.
Rebecca Johnson and Kiara DeVore received the Walter Gimbel Sr. Book Scholarship Award.
The scholarship award is named in memory of Walt Gimbel, a past president of the Kiwanis.
Johnson and her mother and DeVore attended a Kiwanis dinner at the Austrian Village in Rockledge. Kiwanis members and guests said a prayer, recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sung My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.
Kiwanis president Pete Bodor and member Kathy McDonough delivered remarks about the honorees.
DeVore attended St. William Elementary School until it closed in 2012, then graduated from Presentation BVM and Bishop McDevitt High School. She attends the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, where she will be a junior in the fall. She has a 3.95 grade point average as a history major and Spanish minor and is completing a certificate program in digital studies. She had an internship at West Overton Village and Museum, where she worked in archives. She will be traveling to the Frick Collection in New York on a research trip. She is a starter and co-captain on the soccer team and was a referee and scorekeeper for intramural soccer, volleyball and basketball. She participated in Meals on Wheels and Pitt-Greensburg’s Into the Streets service project. She is a member of the Phi Eta Sigma honor society, and ran a concession stand at a wrestling tournament in support of Connor’s Cure for pediatric cancer research.
Johnson graduated from St. Matthew and Bishop McDevitt. She is a theater major, with a stage management concentration, at Temple, where she will be a senior in the fall. She had a 3.74 GPA this past year. She is founder and president of the Creative Writers Commons and spent the spring semester studying in London and visiting nine other countries. Last fall, she was stage manager for The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek and lead assistant stage manager for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. ••
