Rotarian Vincent Chiravalle presents a Distinguished Student of Service certificate to LAHS junior Anna Wetteland, on behalf of the Rotary Club of Los Alamos as her parents, Jen and Chris Wetteland share the moment with LAHS teacher Debbie Grothaus, April 25, at Cottonwood on the Greens. Photo by Sandy Tobin.
BY VINCENT CHIRAVALLE
Rotary Club of Los Alamos
The motto of Rotary is Service Above Self. To support this motto in each academic year, the Rotary Club of Los Alamos honors “Distinguished Students of Service” in their junior year of high school. Students are first nominated by their teachers who are asked to select those who:
- Have given positive contributions to their high school and/or in the community;
- Have a good attitude toward learning;
- Are good citizens, are respectful of their peers and teachers; and
- Have good grades, attendance and classroom participation.
The Club then selects students based on demonstrated spirit of service and exemplification of the Rotary 4 Way Test:
- Is it the truth?
- Is it fair to all concerned?
- Will it build good will and better friendships?
- Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
On April 25th the Rotary Club of Los Alamos presented Anna Wetteland, a Los Alamos High School junior with a Distinguished Student of Service award. Anna is indeed one who has made service part of her life and she is a very well-rounded student. Anna is a member of the National Honor Society, the student council, the spirit team, the poster team, the ballroom dance club and the hip-hop club. Anna also volunteers with the Elks club and is a swim instructor. She is a versatile student athlete who is captain of the swim team, and she also competes on the track team.
In her essay Anna shared with the Club one of the challenges facing today’s youth; namely not having opportunities to learn important life skills. To address this issue Anna proposed creating a swim lesson program at the Larry R. Walkup Aquatic Center, run by students, who will learn the importance of having a job and how to instruct a class. Anna described her swim lesson program as follows, “The pool at the Aquatic Center should always be packed with kids learning to swim, but it isn’t. I think all kids should know how to swim because it is a very important life skill. As a community I think we should start a program not only to teach kids how to swim, but to teach teenagers to have a job and how to instruct a class. We have all of the tools for a program, we just need to put it into action.”
The Rotary Club of Los Alamos feels that this is a very worthy effort and commends Anna for her service to the youth in Los Alamos.
When receiving the award Anna was joined by her mother Jen Wetteland, her father Chris Wetteland, and LAHS teacher Debbie Grothaus, who nominated her for the award. Rotarian Vincent Chiravalle conducted the award ceremony.