May 17, 2016 Newsletter

56^th Annual Honors Banquet for EHS - Recap for Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Rotarians met Tuesday evening at China Hill to host, recognize and honor 53 students from Ellsworth High School as they prepare to graduate. The students were selected to attend based on their academic class standing. Many parents and family members were also on hand to be part of the evening.

Opening Ceremonies: Vocational Director Carl Lusby called the evening to order. The invocation was given by Larry Fernald and we said the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Ashley Johnson spoke briefly about the personal importance of the evening to her

and extended her congratulations to the students. She introduced our guest speaker for the evening, Cindy Gallagher. A graduate of EHS and the University of Maine, she is currently SVP, Global Business Services Controller for Discovery Communications. She charged the upcoming graduates to be fearless and courageous in their endeavors and to always find a way,

even a new and creative way, to accomplish the goal at hand.

The awards portion of the evening started by recognizing each student in attendance with a certificate of achievement. Student provided biographies were read by Rotarians Alison King, Tracy Shaffer and Jack Frost with certificates being presented by Carl Lusby and Peter

Farragher.

Rotary scholarships were presented to several students by Carl Lusby and David Wells. To end the evening, the Jerry Kaufman Memorial Rotary 4 Way Test Scholarship was presented by Peter Farragher to Lukas Firestone.

The meeting adjourned with students being asked to take a group photo.

Our thanks to the many Rotarian hosts for the evening, to Cindy and Iris for performing ticketing duties, to Carl for organizing the evening in conjunction with Ellsworth City Schools and to Peter Farragher and staff for providing administrative support and for creating the evening’s program guide. Our thanks also to the staff at China Hill for offering a delicious buffet enjoyed by those in attendance. It was a pleasure to meet so many accomplished students and engage with them and their parents for the evening. Our best wishes for their bright futures.

Respectfully submitted,

Tracy Shaffer