Students get boost from scholarship

By | The New Mexican

8/23/2008

Luke Winston graduated from Harvard with a degree in science. Instead of pursuing a career in research, the Las Vegas, N.M., native went to Santiago, Chile, to help at an orphanage.

During the year that he took care of 40 youngsters, he realized that he was making a great impact on their lives, but none on the larger social problems behind child abuse and neglect.

He started a Web site, VEGlobal, voluntariosesperanza.org, to help volunteers around the world work to protect children's rights.

Now he plans to return to Harvard to pursue graduate studies at the Kennedy School of Government.

He told his story at Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation's annual banquet, on Aug. 15 at the Ohkay Casino Resort Hotel.

Winston graduated from Las Vegas Robertson High School. Although he was offered financial aid from Harvard, he said he would not have been able to attend had he not received the laboratory foundation's top scholarship in 1999.

As a platinum scholar he received a four-year grant that allowed him to reduce the debt load for his education.

This year's platinum scholar is Alicia Lucia Salazar. She is a graduate of Española High School and will attend New Mexico State University in Las Cruces with a $30,000 scholarship — $7,500 for each of four years.

This year the foundation awarded 51 scholarships to Northern New Mexico students, ranging from $1,000 to $30,000.

Since the program's inception in 1998, the foundation has awarded more than
$1.3 million in scholarships. The money came from laboratory employees as well as from the lab's corporate manager Los Alamos National Security, LLC, and local businesses.

This year the foundation has established an endowed scholarship fund in honor of retiring Sen. Pete Domenici.

Domenici was guest of honor at the Aug. 15 foundation banquet. He was honored in remarks by his former aide Ernest Vigil; Española Mayor Joseph Maestas; U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce; Jill Cooper, wife of U.S. Rep. Tom Udall and Ben Luján, speaker of New Mexico's House of Representatives. Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Mike Anastasio; foundation president Diana MacArthur and director Susan Herrera also spoke, praising Domenici's work on behalf of the foundation.

For more information on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation's scholarship fund, visit the Web site at lanlfoundation.org or call 505-753-8890.