By Mitch Lehman
San Marino Tribune
The Rotary Club of San Marino presented Barth Scholarships to three seniors at San Marino High School and one senior at Southwestern Academy on May 18. The scholarships are worth $2,500 each and were presented on behalf of San Marino’s Andy and Avery Barth.
The scholarship recipients included Esther Lian, Valerie Kuo, Gianna Karkafi and Kateryna Dziubko.
Lian, who will graduate this week from San Marino High School, is headed to Northwestern University, where she will study journalism. While at SMHS, Lian was captain of Dance Company, president of the National Art Honor Society and was in the honors humanities class that meets at the Huntington Library.
“I try to find beautiful connections between art and education,” Lian said at last Thursday’s lunch meeting.
Kuo, who will be heading to UCLA, said she intends to study child psychology. She shadowed a student at the University of La Verne who is studying in her field of interest. Kuo is president of the school’s Lend a Paw club, which helps provide healthy food for sheltered dogs and cats and helps promote the mission of the Humane Society.
Karkafi will also be heading to UCLA after graduation to study neuroscience. A captain of San Marino High School’s girls’ basketball team, Karkafi also founded the Middle East Club at SMHS. She tutors students in the Middle East “to give them a better life,” Karkafi said Thursday.
Dziubko is a senior at Southwestern Academy and hails from the Ukraine. She is the student body president and also played volleyball and basketball for the Sun.
Dziubko said she “wants to make a difference in the world,” and that many in the Southwestern Academy family “have encouraged her to develop her leadership skills.” Dziubko is currently on the wait list at UC Berkeley. Dziubko was accompanied to the meeting by Robin Jarchow, the head of school at Southwestern Academy.
“Kateryna was originally quiet and shy, but has grown into a very remarkable young woman,” Jarchow said.
Denise Wadsworth, a member of the Rotary Club’s Barth Scholarship Committee who addressed the winners at the event said: “Your life isn’t a one-act play. … Make mistakes and forgive yourself. You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack.”
