Proud Mama Alert!
Last week, Ana, our oldest daughter, received an invitation to attend a special ceremony at the university (www.utpa.edu) which she now attends, and after the ceremony, a special reception to be held at the president of the university's home. Ana was allowed to bring two guests, which fortunately, were her dad & I! What she (& we) did not know was that she was to actually receive an award at the function!
Out of the approximately 17,000 students at UTPA, only she and 3 other students received a Gold Medal from the President of the United States of America (see: http://www.presidentialserviceawards.gov/ ) plus a special certificate and honor from the University (she got the shiny gold pin in the picture!). This is the first year which these awards have been granted at UTPA. The honor was given for her volunteer efforts throughout the past few years - she has far more than the 500 hours required to receive the "Gold" - something like 1,400 for volunteer time from the last 5 years alone - many hours of service done for church related volunteer activities, but many others for community related volunteer efforts. But, we thought the award would just be mailed out to her sometime or something. It was very neat!
And, the dinner at the University President's house was really fun. On an aside, the University Pres.lives in the Lake James subdivision, which was actually built/developed by St. George's Parishioners - the streets named for their children - and then there's "Lebanon" Street, too. And, the Lake at has been blessed at Theophany for years and years! Anyway...
Ana also received notice this week that, after having been invited to apply, she was accepted to become a University "Ambassador" or student mentor, and will be employed to help mentor some of next year's freshman students. In addition, she made it to the Dean's Honor Role (got a 4.0!) and was invited to join and is now part of the Freshman Honor Society (Alpha Lambda Delta as in: http://www.nationalald.org/). Out of the 6,000 entering freshman, only 80 some students made it to the honor's society! She's carrying a pretty good class load this semester and is working very hard, hoping to do well once again.
Yep, we're really proud of her!
And, Cristina is hoping to start at UTPA next fall as well, but with a bit less of a class load, since she's still but a young lass! I know we'll be just as proud of her accomplishments, too!
Mat. Elizabeth
St. George's Orthodox ChurchRio Grande Valley of Tropical South Texaswww.stgeorgepantry.org
