GERWC is proud to announce the winners of the Club Scholarships for 2007. These two $500.00 awards are given to an outstanding Senior Boy and Girl who have participated in Cross Country and/or track in their senior year, and who will attend college next year. This year there were approximately 20 applicants for these scholarships.

     The award to the outstanding girl is presented to Stephanie Wuerth of Castle High School. It is hard to decide where to start when you talk about Stephanie’s accomplishments. You undoubtedly saw her picture in the Evansville Courier and Press as one of the valedictorians of her class and she was named a National Merit Finalist. People who are smart enough to be National Merit Finalists are usually smart enough to find a sport that doesn’t require the sweat and discomfort of Cross Country, but in Stephanie’s case she ran all four years where she led her team to the Semi-State (all four years), qualified as an individual at that level, and was named to the Academic All State Team for this year. She has been a class representative in the student council all four years, has participated in the “Mathmagicians” math club, and the Science Club—where she has won awards in the Indiana State Math Contest and the Science Quiz Bowl. She was chosen to represent Castle for the Richard Lugar (by the way, also a well known jogger and runner) Symposium for Tomorrow’s Leaders, and was chosen to attend a Stanford University High School Summer college course where she took courses in Biochemistry and U.S.-China Relations during the summer of 2006. Other than that, she hasn’t done much! The GERWC Scholarship is extremely proud (and frankly a little intimidated-- given the fact that the three judges could only get to a 4.0 grade point average ourselves if we added our 3 GPAs together) to present this award to Stephanie and we wish her wonderful luck in whatever she undertakes in the future. We know she will be outstanding at whatever she undertakes. 

     And as marvelous as Stephanie’s record is, our male award winner Jonathan Spradley of Memorial High School and his parents have just as much to be proud of. Jonathan has a 5.543 GPA at Memorial and is a member of the National Honor Society. He has participated in track for 4 years and in Cross Country for the last 2 after he decided to give up soccer for our sport. He is active in the Christ the King Music Group, which performs at masses, and has been active in the Key Club, a service organization. Jonathan’s essay struck a number of chords with the judges when he admitted that from time to time he wondered why he put himself through the aches and pains and soreness that running (especially in a competitive high school program) brings. But he realizes, he says, that he “puts up with all of those things because I love what running has brought into my life. I love being able to go out and run wherever I am and relieve some of the stresses that I may have. I also love all of the relationships that I have made through running. . . In most other sports a person is not able to really talk to their teammates, but in Cross country and track, when we go on longer runs, we can talk to each other and really have some great conversations…. The beauty of being a runner is that whenever I get older and am no longer running for competition purposes I know that I can still call up a few friends and we can go on a run together . . . Sometimes I see a very old man or woman out running and I wonder if I will still be running when I am that old. The answer to that question is yes because I know that running is a lifetime sport . . . Running has been a staple of my life, and I look for it to continue to be one”. The GERWC Judges think we want to give Jonathan a small hand here if we can, because we look forward to seeing him in our running community for many years into the future.  (Even though we are a little worried that the “very old man” Jonathan sees out running is probably one of us!) So our congratulations go to Jonathan and his parents as well and we hope the scholarship—as modest as it is—will help him reach his other goals.