As many of our long-time members know, one of the long standing traditions in Post 577 is the Post's participation in the annual NROTC awards ceremony hosted by Carnegie Mellon's NROTC unit. Post 577 bestows Military Excellence and Scholastic Excellence awards on eight deserving NROTC cadets from The University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University. Yesterday, Jim Page, Post 577 Service Officer, 32nd District Deputy Commander and Allegheny County Vice Commander and myself attended the 2010 ceremony at CMU where we conferred the Legion's Military Excellence and Scholastic Excellence awards on one member of each class whom the leadership of the NROTC unit felt was most deserving of these awards. Here are the Awardees for 2010.
American Legion Military Excellence Awardees
Midshipman 4/C Matthew Burnett, CMU
Midshipman 3/C Andrew Medenbach, CMU
Midshipman 2/C Brian Cortell, CMU
Midshipman 1/C Logan Giger, Duquesne
American Legion Scholastic Excellence Awardees
Midshipman 4/C Glenn Sidle, Duquesne
Midshipman 3/C Tara Dowling, Duquesne
Midshipman 2/C Jonathan Licht, CMU
Midshipman 1/C Thomas Whitmore, CMU
Post 577 wishes all the Legion NROTC honorees as well as all those who received honors at yesterday's ceremonies "Fair Winds and Following Seas" as they begin their career as Naval Officers.
On Sunday April 18th, The Allegheny County Committee of the American Legion and the Allegheny County Council of the American Legion Auxiliary sponsored their 13th Annual Youth Achievement Dinner where the two bodies presented awards to outstanding high school students in the areas of Scouting, athletic and academic excellence, as well as categories unique to the Legion such as Americanism, Essay and Oratorical.
Post 577 sponsored two students at this year's dinner and we're proud to announce that both were recipients of awards. Shane Fischbeck, representing Post 577 and the 32nd District, took third place in the Essay Contest and he and his sister, Derya were also recipients of Legion Academic awards, which consisted of medals, certificates and in the case of the Essay award, a cash prize. The Fischbecks will be honored at a Post Meeting to be announced, where the Post will match the county's cash prize.
In May, the Post will be reestablishing its participation in the Legion's School Award Program where we will be presenting awards to two outstanding 8th graders at St. Bede School in Point Breeze. The names of those students will be revealed in a later blog post.
In summary, if you're wondering what the Post does with the dues you pay, and maybe you think that it all goes into the bar and nothing else. Let me reassure you that nothing can be further from the truth. While a sizable portion of dues and other income goes towards maintaining the Post Home and yes, that includes the bar, we also sponsor events like the ones mentioned. One of the Legion's major functions aside for standing up for our nation's veterans in their time of need, is also to support and encourage our nation's young people in the transmitting of positive American values of patriotism, hard work, excellence in the classroom, and strong morals.
We're not a big Post with buckets of money and a bar that's open 7 days a week, with lots of activities. We do what we can with what we have. We need more participation from our members. A few cannot do it alone. We want to bring Post 577 back to its former level of prominence in the community. But to do that it takes all the membership to get involved at whatever level each person can achieve. Many giving a little can do much more than a few giving all they can. So if you have some time, and are interested in helping us to get our Post back to where it belongs, please send email to alpost577@gmail.com, or call 412-521-1399. Thanks to our members for the support we have thus far and we are looking forward to getting even more as we increase this Post's involvement in the local community.
Juneteenth.
2 years ago