Saint Vincent College announces 2021 scholarship winners, marks 40 years of Wimmer scholarship awards

Mar. 6—Giovanni Cicala is entering a select fraternity this fall.

The Kiski School senior from Avonmore hit the books, weathered the pandemic and scored high enough in a competitive scholarship exam to win an opportunity to attend Saint Vincent College tuition-free for the next four years as one of the winners of the college's 40th annual Wimmer Scholarship Competition.

About 120 high school students have scored top marks on the college's highly competitive scholarship exam over the last four decades to win the scholarship named for Boniface Wimmer, the Benedictine archabbot who established Saint Vincent College in 1846.

Today, alumni in that select fraternity include physicians, attorneys, research scientists and even a Saint Vincent professor who earned a doctorate at Princeton and returned to teach at his alma mater.

Each year, the college located on a rolling campus alongside the Saint Vincent Archabbey in Unity awards the top winner of its exam a scholarship covering tuition plus room and board for four years. Four runners-up are awarded full tuition scholarships for four years.

Cicala was among the runners-up this year.

The son of John and Debra Cicala will be the second generation of his family to attend the college. His father graduated from Saint Vincent in 1988.

His scholarship award, valued at $150,000, will lighten his family's financial load significantly. The top winner's four-year award for full tuition plus room and board is valued at about $200,000.

Brother Norman Hipps, a mathematics professor and president emeritus of Saint Vincent, has been involved with the scholarship since day one. He said the award, designed to attract high-achieving students, has become more competitive every year.

Students must clear a high bar in terms of high school grades, participation in Advanced Placement classes and college entrance exams just to win an opportunity to sit for the annual scholarship exam. Information about those requirements is available on the Saint Vincent website.

Anywhere from 120 to 150 high-achieving high school seniors travel to Saint Vincent every fall — some coming hundreds of miles — to sit for the scholarship exam. Last fall, 143 high school seniors took the exam when, for the first time, it was offered both online and at the campus.

In another first this year, the college, which typically awards five scholarships, expanded to provide six awards when there was tie among runners-up.

Hipps got involved with the scholarship when he was named academic dean at Saint Vincent in 1980. That was the year the Rev. Earl Henry, then director of admissions, and the Rev. Campion Gavaler, the prior academic dean, launched the program.

The general knowledge portion of the exam is structured to provide a challenge for even the best students. Hipps said no one scores 100. The essay portion is structured around a prompt, while the mathematics section is designed to offer a challenge well beyond mere algebra and geometry.

Hipps said he's enjoyed meeting scholarship candidates and notifying the winners and their families over the years.

"We've met wonderful people," he said. "You can hear the excitement in their voices when I call to notify the winners. They've done significant things with their lives. It's been very, very gratifying being involved with them."

Some, including the winner who went on to become a Saint Vincent professor, have stayed in the area. Hipps said he knows of two who went on to become teachers — one at Greensburg Salem and another at Latrobe Area.

Others have scattered like seeds bearing fruit far and wide.

"There were a couple of families who had three of their children win the scholarship over a six- or seven-year period," Hipps said. "In one of those families, one of the winners became a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, another earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and is a research scientist, and the third did a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Virginia and is with a think tank in New England. In another family with three winners, one became a church organist, another is a computer scientist and the third is a researcher with the EPA."

In addition to Cicala, this year's winners include first-place finisher Nathan Caldwell, a home-schooled student from Montgomery Village, Md.; Ian Buttermore of Mars; Iulia Goean of Boca Raton, Fla.; Miranda Keller of Harrisburg; and Elizabeth Van Pilsum of Columbus, Ohio.

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .