My sister Emily died of pancreatic cancer in 2001. Sometimes I can’t believe it, even as I write this. Emily was my oldest sister, the first born in our family. She was beautiful and talented, and she set the bar for achievement for the rest of us.
She graduated from Smith College, Phi Beta Kappa; went on to teach biology at the Buckingham School, a private girls school outside of Boston; wrote for a number of legal publications; authored two books; and then discovered her real passion — public service. After heading the school board in Charlottesville, she became a state senator, representing Charlottesville and Albemarle counties. (She had moved to Charlottesville when she married Dr. George Beller, who was head of cardiology for the University of Virginia.)
Emily was known for being able to talk to white collar professionals and more rural voters alike. She was considered a big rising star in the Democratic Party — so many people told me that they believed she would be the first female governor of our home state.
I was in the green room of The Tonight Show 25 years ago when I was told Emily needed to talk to me. Knowing I was always worried about my aging parents, she got right to the point. “It’s not mom and dad. It’s me. I’ve been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and it’s all over my liver.” I was in a state of shock. Jay had died two years earlier. I couldn’t believe a devastating diagnosis like this was happening again — this time to my big sister.
It’s been 24 years since we lost Emily. There is a clinical cancer center at the University of Virginia that bears her name. She wanted to do everything she could to improve cancer care in Virginia and the surrounding states. I am full of pride every time I see her name on the building.
The other thing Emily cared deeply about was education. Like my parents, she believed a great education unlocked a world of opportunities — especially for young women. That’s where the Emily Couric Leadership Luncheon comes in!
Last week, we celebrated the 25th year of this event honoring an outstanding female leader (past recipients include Sandra Day O’Connor, Caroline Kennedy, Olympia Snowe, Anna Quintin, Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Rita Dove, just to name a few), and this year, I had the opportunity to interview award-winning documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter, whose work I admire so much.
But perhaps the most exhilarating part of the lunch is hearing about the scholarship winners. To date, more than $2 million in college scholarships have been awarded to outstanding high school seniors from the area. And wow, are they impressive! Here are a few of the winners from this year and how they were described at the luncheon. I think you’ll be as inspired and heartened by them as I was — they truly made me hopeful for the future.
Olga Salama of Charlottesville High School won the top $50,000 scholarship: “Olga is a force of nature who brings her exuberant joy and optimism to everyone around her. She was born in Congo and attended school in a refugee camp in Burundi. When she arrived in the U.S. with her parents and seven siblings in 2021, she spoke Swahili and French, but no English. Now she speaks five languages. Teachers say they’ve never had a student who learned English so fast. Olga has a servant’s heart and throws herself into helping her younger siblings, friends, and many others. She’s in the National Honor Society, mentors students who are learning English, leads the Sunday school at her church, and volunteers with the homeless and the International Rescue Committee. Olga grew up in Burundi, where people die from lacking access to healthcare, either because there are no doctors or because it costs too much to receive treatment. As a first-generation college student, she plans to pursue medicine and work in healthcare on the global stage.”
Seenam “Seesee” Dumor of Monticello High School is the Joshua J. Scott Merit Scholarship Winner: “Seesee is an empathic and driven woman dedicated to making a difference in her community and in the world. Her grandmother inspired her love for education and helping others. Her experiences in Ghana have made her aware of inequities and how they affect the lives of women. She sees the importance of teaching difficult history to ‘reflect on the past mistakes and impact the future.’ She was also deeply affected by being the only person of color watching the film Twelve Years A Slave in a class. She spoke with the teacher and helped create a council to advise the school about the use of media. She also started the Black Student Union at her school and helped create the first Black Business Expo as well as a Mental Health Day.”
Cadigan Perriello of St. Anne’s Belfield: “Cadigan is a deep thinker and the top student in her class. One teacher calls her one of the brightest young women to ever attend St. Anne’s. She also loves science and spent last summer working alongside PhD students at UVA trying to find vaccine candidates for a gastrointestinal disease afflicting infants and children in Bangladesh. In December, she spent time in Bangladesh meeting doctors as well as patients affected by the disease. When Cadigan became editor-in-chief of St. Anne’s faltering school newspaper, she took the paper from publishing just two editions a year to publishing a robust 10 editions. She was captain of the cross-country team last fall and played Beth in the school production of Little Women. Cadigan has been accepted at Princeton and plans to pursue a dual PhD and MD and promote more rapid advances in vaccine development.”
Gwyneth Caroline Cox of Community Lab School: “Gwen is brilliant and humble. She’s the top student in her class and will be the first in her family to attend college. As captain of the squash team, she’s been teaching younger players and was startled one day to hear a kid say, ‘You’re not my mentor anymore because I beat you.’ It made her think about the balance between selflessness and leadership. Now she’s making space to work on her own skills and growth while still coaching. Gwen’s passion about keeping the Earth clean and recycling and composting led her to create the school’s Environmental Science Club. Gwen is most at home when she’s running — she loves the feeling of calm when she’s alone and running. Her mother is her role model. Gwen watched her navigate misogyny during their time in a religious cult before they escaped. She saw her mother grow and become an advocate for other women. Gwen has been accepted into Yale, among other schools. She says, ‘I watched so many Gilmore Girls episodes with my mom, so I really wanted to go to Yale!’”
Kiara Bullard of Regents School: “Kiara is passionate about coaching younger children. She was just 16 when she began coaching a boys soccer team, and she faced constant doubts from male coaches and parents who questioned her abilities. Last spring her team clinched the championship. When she went to pick up their medals, the director said, ‘What luck you must have had. I’ve never seen such an inexperienced team perform well.’ Thousands of children drown each year because they never learned to swim; for six years, Kiara has been committed to prevent needless drowning of those who can’t afford swim lessons, especially immigrant children and underserved minority communities. Kiara plans to become a lawyer specializing in legal aid for low-income families.”
Kinsley Verbrugge of Covenant School: “Kinsley is a generous and humble leader who excels in her advanced science courses. She loves to hike and ski and is captain of the cross-country team. But what she loves most is mentorship. Kinsley’s father is a teacher who saw many colleagues leave because they couldn’t support their family in Charlottesville. She dreams of one day creating a business that generates more income for teachers in summer months so they can afford to pursue what they love. Kinsley’s family has housed students from all over the world, which has instilled in her an appreciation for different perspectives. She’s trying to decide between UVA, William & Mary, and Wheaton College in Chicago.”
Madeleine Ford Clodfelter of Renaissance School: “Madeleine has been one of her school’s highest achieving students over the past several years and has connected with researchers and field experts at the University of Virginia. She is president of her school’s Model General Assembly and serves as co-president of the History Club and the Yearbook Club. She believes a leader ‘acts with joy, love, and true passion for what they are pursuing, for the people they are working with, and for the progress they make as a whole.’ Since moving to Charlottesville from Raleigh, Madeleine says, ‘The life I’ve built for myself is filled with friends, acquaintances, and people I adore — relationships I have made myself.’ Asked to pick three attributes that best describe her, Madeleine chose ‘ardent, erudite, and fearless.’”
Margaret Lee of Western Albemarle High School: “Inspired by a great-grandmother’s battle with dementia, Margaret organized students to participate in weekly music shifts at Martha Jefferson Hospital and perform monthly concerts at a local nursing home. She and another student have established eight different chapters in Virginia, California, New York and North Carolina. She also plays second violin in the all-adult Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra. Margaret aspires to become an oncologist and work to help dismantle discrimination within the healthcare system. She runs Western’s Young Asian and Pacific Islander Club. As an active member of Western’s student equity group, she was instrumental in helping the faculty see that they needed to be teaching a fuller curriculum, one where people of color are also featured, and their histories and contributions are celebrated. Margaret is also part of a team working to create a protocol to address racism, hate, and discrimination at the county-wide level and she serves as student representative to the Albemarle County School Board.”
Mary Raffinan of Tandem Friends School: “Mary Raffinan plans to study engineering in college and spent a month in Pittsburgh with Carnegie-Mellon to follow her passion for STEM and Computer Science. She leads Tandem’s ‘Geeky Girls Club,’ which promotes inclusion in STEM fields and running science activities for young girls. After a childhood filled with puzzles, Legos, and chess, her favorite place these days is the maker space at Tandem where she builds rockets, and towers. Mary believes there are too few women in construction and is brainstorming ways to close the gap. Mary believes in listening to every voice. This helped her lead Tandem to reach a compromise of doubling the speaking limit at the school’s monthly open meeting after one student struggled to articulate her point and was abruptly cut off at the previous 60-second speaking limit. A student senate meeting at which she was secretary decided to clearly affirm the importance of listening to every voice and giving speakers up to two minutes to speak at open meetings.”
Mia Martin of Miller School: “As editor-in-chief of the school literary magazine, Mia noticed that while there are many students from other nations at Miller, nearly all the submissions are in English. So, she persuaded bilingual students to submit their works in their first language and then found skilled student translators. As a result, the magazine for the first time had numerous bilingual pieces, including a poignant poem by a junior from China who said seeing her writing in both languages was the first time she felt her work really mattered. Mia is president of the Gender-Sexuality Alliance at Miller School and hosted a forum for queer students to express their fears over the future of LGBTQ+ rights and mental health and concerns about teen suicides. After college, she wants to work in the publishing industry — specifically in diverse publishing to uplift marginalized voices in what she says is often an exclusive and inaccessible field.”
Vidya Ambati of Albemarle High School: “Vidya loves science and excels in it and believes access to science is a universal human right. Working with science mentors at UVA she discovered a new approach to treating arthritis. She made the surprising discovery that an antipsychotic drug called Haldol dramatically reduces the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis and gout. Vidya is alarmed that many young women around the world are not exposed to what she calls ‘the liberating joys of science,’ so she created an international webinar series that connects students to renowned scientists. She calls it ‘STASH,’ which stands for Speak To A Scientist Hero. She has expanded it to more than 1,000 students in 190 schools in eight countries.”
Incredible, right? As one of the forty-something guys at our table said, “I don’t think I ever discovered a new use for a drug in high school — maybe I did a few, but never discovered any.”
Congratulations to all the young women who were awarded scholarships. I can’t wait to see what they do in the world, at a time when the world really needs them!
