On Tuesday, March 6th, two seniors, Brooke Oliver and Nick Kempf, received amazing news: they had both been awarded The George Washington University Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Scholarship, which fully covers tuition, housing, books and fees for all four years of their undergraduate education.
The news was overwhelming, even more so because it was delivered in person and with the entire Latin class of 2025 in attendance. On a regular morning, the entire senior class was called together for a senior meeting. After brief updates on upcoming events, the President of GW joined the meeting to announce the scholarship award. Nick and Brooke were then surrounded by family members, students, GW faculty, and NBC 4 newscasters to congratulate them on their outstanding accomplishment.
This event was carefully planned to keep the students from knowing until the announcement, and it was successful. “I was the only one who didn’t know that it was gonna be like, a GW thing,” said Nick “because everyone else kind of thought it was, but I actually thought it was a senior thing until I saw Miss Barahona fall out of the kitchen door and saw my brother.” Brooke agreed, saying she “was just kind of oblivious” of what was about to occur.
Both seniors shared the same sentiment about being overwhelmed after the reveal and follow up news interviews, but they were grateful about the opportunity and community support. Brooke felt “really happy, glad to be recognized [and] …felt very supported by everybody, especially my friends and family.” Likewise, Nick said he “definitely felt the love. I got a lot of texts. It was like they told us that it was going to be a public release, but I didn’t know I was going to be on NBC.”
Congratulations to both Seniors!
