By Town Crier Staff Report
Los Altos High students Scotty Hamilton, Vernis James and Rene Martinez were among the high school seniors honored last month at the REACH Youth Scholarship awards breakfast in San Jose.
The three local students were nominated for REACH awards, which recognize high school seniors who have overcome adversity in their lives to excel both academically and athletically. Reach is an acronym for Recognizing Excellence, Adversity, Courage and Hard work.
Neither Hamilton, James nor Martinez came away with awards, however.
Hamilton and James were all-league performers on the Los Altos football team and Martinez was a standout on the Eagles’ boys soccer team.
A total of 34 students from 20 schools submitted applications for scholarships.
Students nominated for a REACH Youth Scholarship have to be nominated by a faculty member and meet certain criteria. The criteria includes being a high school senior, participating in at least one high school sanctioned sport, showing community involvement, maintaining a minimum 2.5 grade-point average and overcoming some kind of adversity or obstacles to reach his or her goals.
Nominees also had to submit essays describing how they were able to overcome or deal with adversity. In these essays, the students told compelling stories about their determination to succeed despite the hardships they face. A panel of local media and community leaders reviewed the essays to select the eight scholarship recipients, who were announced at the awards breakfast on May 11 in San Jose.
This year’s scholarship winners included Denise Pu of Gunn High. Pu, who participated in girls basketball and badminton, was born with a hole in her heart. She also overcame the death of her father and moving from Taiwan to the United States. Other recipients were Eric Espino (Gunderson High), Monicka Jolie Urueta (Santa Clara), Jacque Mox (Leigh), Trevor Haines (Live Oak), Jesse Alejandro (Saratoga), Charlene Deardorff (Mount Pleasant) and Grant Hasselbach (Palo Alto).
The purpose of the program is to acknowledge how participating in sports can help a young person stay on track in school and be strong in the face of personal struggles.
Program co-chairs Ronnie Lott (NFL Hall of Fame) and Brandi Chastain (World Cup soccer champion) presented the awards to the eight winners.
Other special guests included Neil Parry, member of the San Jose State Football team, whose leg was amputated after a compound fracture he sustained in a game last year became infected; and DJ Frandsen, who won the first REACH Youth Scholarship in 1997. Frandsen, a cancer survivor, is now a student at Santa Clara University, where he is also the manager of the men’s basketball team.
