San Marcos High School senior Rachel Venturino has been named a recipient of a NASSP/Herff Jones Principal’s Leadership Award scholarship, co-sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals and Herff Jones Inc.
One hundred national state PLA winners were chosen from among more than 3,000 applications. Each state winner will receive a $1,000 college scholarship.
“We have a number of amazing seniors here at San Marcos, and we are very proud of Rachel and her accomplishments,” San Marcos Principal Norm Clevenger said. “She is going to do some amazing things in life.”
Participating high school principals from across the country could nominate one senior high student to compete in this year’s program. Winners were selected on the basis of their leadership skills, participation in service organizations and clubs, achievements in the arts and sciences, employment experience and academic record. They also were required to write an essay.
“The qualities recognized by the PLA scholarship and demonstrated by Rachel have never been more important than now. Academic excellence represents an aspiration for all students, leadership exemplifies an essential skill to possess in the 21st century, and service to others symbolizes the spirit of America,” NASSP Executive Director Gerald Tirozzi said. “Students like Rachel stand out to bravely face the challenges of today and lead us to a better tomorrow.”
In recognizing leadership in co-curricular activities as well as academic performance, the PLA scholarship program recognizes the importance for a well-rounded education. Co-curricular activities are an essential part of the school curriculum.
While at San Marcos, Venturino has been senior class president and president of the Earth Club. The club received two $5,000 national environmental grants under Venturino’s leadership. The Alliance for Climate Education awarded the Earth Club the funds to install filtered water stations on campus for refilling reusable water bottles in an effort to reduce the number of plastic water bottles discarded daily. San Marcos was the first school in the area to receive the refilling stations.
The award was a result of a project in which the Earth Club joined forces with the school’s special-education students, students at La Colina Junior High, Santa Barbara Junior High, Santa Barbara High School and UCSB’s Environmental Affairs Board to collect 3,500 plastic water bottles over a three-month period. The bottles, which represent the number thrown away in the United States every five seconds, were displayed at Santa Barbara’s 40th annual Earth Day festivities.
The water bottle “sculpture” was the winning project for both the Alliance for Climate Education grant and a $5,000 grand prize from DoSomething.org’s national competition “Increase Your Green.” This spring, as part of the Earth Club’s recycling effort, Venturino led the Earth Club to begin a terracycle project at San Marcos, where items such as chip bags, yogurt containers, drink pouches and other items, which are not usually recyclable, are sent to a special recycling center. This fall she plans to attend UCLA to study economics.
— Aaron Solis is the activities director for San Marcos High School.