Ilion High School - Class of 1940

Ilion Sentinel - September 5, 1940

Elks Magazine Publishes Reports On Scholarship Winners-Lauds Ilion Boy

Article 1

Elks Magazine Publishes Reports On Scholarship Winners

Lauds Ilion Boy

In the current, issue of the Elks Magazine, high praise has been given to Edwin C. Smith, Otsego Street by the chairman of the Elks National Foundation Trustees in his annual report.

Several weeks ago, Smith was awarded the first prize of $600, an airplane trip to Houston, Texas, and a return trip to New York by boat, for being one of the country's foremost outstanding high school students. The Elks foundation is a charitable foundation and is conducted for the purpose of selecting each year, four students in the United States to whom they award prizes which must be used to further his or her education. It is the purpose of the Foundation to seek out boys and girls who not only have attained high marks in high school but who stand high in their own circles; young people who have the ability to overcome all difficulties in their pursuit of knowledge. In the opinion of the judges, Edwin C. Smith, class of 1940 valedictorian, Ilion High School, had all the necessary qualifications for the place.

In awarding the Elks prize to Smith, the chairman said:

Our first prize of $600 is awarded to Edwin C. Smith of Ilion, New York, whose average scholastic rating for the four years in the high school at Ilion was the highest attained by any student in that school in more than twenty years. For this boy to get a 95 in his scholastic rating was most unusual, 97.99 and 100 are more frequently found in his scholastic record. He has been a Boy Scout for five years and during this period has achieved the rank of Eagle Scout with gold palm which requires thirty-one merit badges. He was sent as representative of Troop Seven of the Boy Scouts to the National Jamboree in 1937 in Washington and also is the possessor of a life guard certificate.

He has played tackle on the varsity football team and has held the track position as 100-yard and 220-yard dash man and during the last two years the Ilion high school track squad has been both county and sectional champion. He played intra-section football and this year was a member of the ski team. He has taken part in canoing, swimming, ice skating and tennis, being one of the school's speed skaters. For two years he has been a member of the student governing body as well as class president during his junior year and class treasurer during his senior year and, as a member of the school senate, was chairman of the athletic committee; for two years he has been secretary-treasurer of the Boys' Rifle Club, took a leading role in the senior play and is a member of the senior annual staff and monitor in the school's traffic system. He is a member of the Junior and Senior National Honor Society. He is one of two boys of the graduating class of 1940 who has won an honor "I" given for points covered by extra-curricular activities.

And how has this boy been able to accomplish all of these things and make this marvelous scholastic record? Much of his father's and mother's earnings have gone to pay hospital and doctor's bills accruing from the illness and injury of a younger brother who was an invalid for many years.

However, the boy persisted and earned money to take care of himself and pursue his schooling by delivering newspapers on a paper rout for five years, by peddling handbills, selling magazines, and working at various jobs during the summer vacations – as a caddy, as a grocery clerk. Through that medium he has been able to buy his own clothes, his own spectacles, and any and all so-called luxuries which any and all young men both need and require.

In awarding our first prize to this boy, we believe we are starting on the road to eminence and leadership in our nation in the years to come one of our most outstanding young men in our country.