May 28 – Annual Scholarship Program

The Rotary podium will be taken over by Scott Neal on behalf of the Scholarship Committee, as we continue our tradition of recognizing the best and the brightest of our Central Kentucky high schoolers and educators.  This year’s challenge to the committee was to identify three outstanding students to each receive $5,000 awards, with one of them to also be named as the Milward Cup recipient, recognizing achievement in following the Rotary motto of Service Above Self.  Each applicant was asked to provide essays, one addressing why the applicant deserves the award and one addressing the financial impact this award would have upon them. This year also sees the return of the Jack T. Bryden Great Teacher Award, recognizing one out of a plethora of educators who supported and were nominated by our applicants.

We proudly present to you this year’s recipients:

Elizabeth Deffendall is a senior in the Biomedical Sciences program at Frederick Douglass High School.  A Lexington native, she will be studying occupational science at Eastern Kentucky University this fall.  Her career goal is to become a pediatric occupational therapist to show kids that they are more than their disability. She is active on campus as a member of the National Honor Society, Student Council, The Bandana project, Health Occupations Students of America, Care Cards Club, and DanceBlue. As fundraising chair on the executive committee of DanceBlue this year her team raised over $28,600 for pediatric cancer. When she’s not working as a hostess at DoubleDogs, she enjoys reading, art, and volunteering in the community. She is bilingual, earning the Seal of Biliteracy having been a part of the Spanish Immersion Program through 8th grade. She will be graduating Summa Cum Laude in June.

Justin Muñoz Hernandez is a senior from Henry Clay High School. He describes himself as a driven and resilient student-athlete with strong interests in academics and personal growth. He will be attending the University of Michigan in the fall, majoring in chemical engineering! He notes that none of his achievements would be possible without the sacrifice of his parents as they immigrated to the United States with nothing but their work ethic. Because they were not formally educated, he had to work hard to be who he is today and expects to continue to thrive with the help of my mentors/educators. Justin was quite specific about the benefit he would receive from the cash portion of this award: the ability to purchase a laptop capable of running engineering software, a graphing calculator, and other needed school materials.

Katherine Zhang, recipient of this year’s Milward Cup, is a senior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School’s MSTC Center in Lexington, Kentucky. Katherine is a student researcher at the University of Kentucky, where she conducted research in embedded AI systems and autonomous robotics, publishing her work in an International IEEE Conference. Beyond research, she is deeply committed to community service as the co-founder of the Youth Leadership Program, a nonprofit organization that has connected hundreds of students to volunteer opportunities and contributed over 500 service hours supporting food security, technical literacy, senior homes, and cancer awareness initiatives across Kentucky. She has also organized TEDxYouth events, coached students to the national MATHCOUNTS competition, and served in statewide STEM leadership roles while earning distinctions including USACO Platinum, National Merit Finalist, NCWIT Kentucky State Winner, and the Congressional App Challenge. Inspired by her disabled grandparents, Katherine hopes to pursue a career developing socially assistive robots and intelligent systems that improve independence and quality of life for elderly and disabled individuals.

Jo-Hanna Rosevear,the biomedical sciences magnet program teacher and coordinator at Frederick Douglass High School is the recipient of our Club’s Jack T. Bryden Great Teacher Award.  She was nominated by fellow awardee Elizabeth Deffendall.

Jo-Hanna was born and raised in Kentucky, where her early experiences shaped a strong appreciation for community, education, and the impact that everyday relationships can have on a person’s direction in life. After graduating high school, she attended the University of Kentucky on a pre-med track with plans to pursue medicine. By her junior year, she realized that path no longer was meant for her, but she chose to finish what she started and earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology. That decision became an important early lesson for her in commitment, adaptability, and trusting the process even when the destination changes.

Her path toward education was not planned; it chose her. After graduation, working in community outreach and education for a chiropractic company led to an important discovery: the realization that the most meaningful impact she was making had nothing to do with treatment and everything to do with education. That realization shifted the trajectory of her career and life.

That experience led her to pursue teaching, and she went on to earn a Master’s in Education followed by a second Master’s in Teacher Leadership, along with an endorsement in gifted education. Eventually, she was encouraged by a former colleague to join Frederick Douglass High School as the biomedical sciences magnet program teacher and coordinator, a role she has held for the past eight years.

Jo-Hanna works with students who have chosen to challenge themselves in rigorous coursework. While she is passionate about the content of her curriculum, what matters most to her is who she teaches: students who are curious, driven, and willing to push beyond what they thought they were capable of. What consistently surprises her is how often students underestimate themselves. Watching them grow into confidence, whether that is academically, personally, or professionally, is one of the most rewarding parts of her work.

A significant influence in her life has been educators and mentors who modeled what it looks like to invest in others without expecting recognition in return. One thing that has always stayed with Jo-Hanna is how small, intentional acts such as taking time to explain something again, checking in on a student who seems quiet, or encouraging someone to apply for an opportunity they didn’t think they were ready for, can completely change someone’s life in that moment. Those examples shaped how she showed up for her own students.

She is especially proud of the long-term relationships she built with students who return years later to share how a conversation, a challenge, or a moment of encouragement changed their direction. Those moments represent the heart of her work more than any title or credential ever could.

Jo-Hanna is married to her husband Christian; they have two children, Eli and Charli-Grace.

 

Rotary in Review 

ROTARY SCHOLARSHIP DAY: INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE 

Last week saw our Club renewing its annual investment in our future by recognizing Central Kentucky students and a teacher determined by our Scholarship Committee, led by Chair Scott Neal, to reflect our Rotary values.  The bios for the students, Elizabeth Deffendall, Justin Munoz Hernandez, and Katherine Zhang, along with Great Teacher Jo-Hanna Rosevear, are fully set out in last week’s Wheel Horse. 

Your Editor thought Chair Neal’s message to the awardees and our Club were worth repeating here.  Read, be inspired, and be motivated to action. 

Scott’s remarks:  

Before I let you go, I want to say something to this Club — not as your chairman, but as a fellow Rotarian who shares your concerns. 

I know that many of us walk into rooms like this one carrying weight that has nothing to do with scholarship committees. We carry worry about the direction of our country. About an economy that feels uncertain. About a political climate so divided that it sometimes feels like the center cannot hold. About whether the institutions we were raised to trust — and to serve — are strong enough to survive what is being asked of them. 

Those fears are not small. And I will not pretend they are. But I want you to look — really look — at who is standing in this room with us today. 

A young man whose parents arrived in this country with nothing, who tutored students in a language the system forgot they spoke, and who is headed to one of the finest engineering programs in the world. 

A young woman who lost her health, her home, and faced more than a hundred thousand dollars in medical debt — and responded by feeding her neighbors, advocating for herself, and choosing a career devoted to children who need someone to believe in them. 

A young woman who calls her blind grandmother every Saturday and paints the world for her in words, who built a nonprofit from nothing, who published research as a high school student, and who was prepared to give up her own education so her grandmother could receive cancer treatment. 

And a teacher who ran down a hallway for a student in crisis, who sat and decoded a doctor’s report with a frightened teenager, who handed back a fifty-percent exam not to discourage, but to demand more — because she saw something in that student that the student could not yet see in herself. 

This is the generation we are worried about? I would argue — this is the generation that should give us hope. 

Not because their lives have been easy. They have not. Not because the world they are entering is fair. It is not. But because in the face of everything that has tried to stop them, they have chosen — every single one of them — to serve someone else first. 

That is not a political statement. That is a Rotary statement. That is the oldest, most durable answer to division and fear that this organization has ever offered the world: find someone who needs help and help them. 

Justin, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Mrs. Rosevear — you did not just receive something today. You gave this room something it needed. Thank you. 

Now — a word to my fellow Rotarians. 

This year, this committee received a record number of applicants for this scholarship. A record number. Which means there are young people in this community — students with stories just as extraordinary as the ones you heard today — who applied, who deserved to be here, and who went home without an award. 

That is not a failure of the committee. This committee did extraordinary work. That is a challenge to this club. 

I am asking this membership to approve an increase in the scholarship budget for next year — so that we can reach more students, recognize more teachers, and make a wider circle of impact in this community. 

If today showed us anything, it is that the need is there. The talent is there. The character is there. The only question is whether we are willing to match it.