The East Penn Press sponsors scholarships for graduating Emmaus High School seniors in the areas of journalism and good citizenship.

This year, recipients of The Stinger, Outstanding Journalism Student Scholarships are Bibiana Correa, Lily Day and Lucas Maake.

Kaitlyn McGinley has been awarded the Richard Gaal Scholarship for Good Citizenship.

Correa, who served as the features editor of the school’s student newspaper, The Stinger, during her senior year, intends to focus on journalism at Temple University. Part of Temple’s appeal, according to Correa, is the many opportunities the school offers to student journalists. She will be living off campus and describes herself as “nervously excited” by the prospect of assimilating into “a whole [new] environment.”

Day, The Stinger’s managing editor in charge of news during her sophomore, junior and senior years will soon be attending Villanova University. She hopes to remain journalistically active by working on Villanova’s student newspaper; however, her main focus will be the study of biology. In describing her interest in this field of study, Day states, “I’m definitely interested in the research side of things.”

Day’s scientific and journalistic bents are shared by Maake. Chosen as a state finalist for the Pennsylvania School Press Association’s 2016-2017 Journalism Contest in the New Newspaper Story category, Maake honed his writing skills working as The Stinger’s assistant opinion editor. He will be attending Princeton University in the fall where he will major in computer science. In reference to the upcoming transition to college, Maake said he is most excited about “…the wealth of opportunities that are available to me there [Princeton].”

All three Stinger, Outstanding Journalism Student Scholarship recipients are pleased to have been chosen. All three said they will use the scholarship money to purchase textbooks.

McGinley, recipient of the Richard Gaal Scholarship for Good Citizenship, was unavailable for comment.

The Richard F. Gaal Award was first presented to an EHS student in 1996. Gaal was a photographer for East Penn Press and former Emmaus Free Press for 36 years. Gaal was a lifelong Emmaus resident and the recipient twice of a Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge award. He died in 1995.

McGinley committed to attending Ursinus College where she will play volleyball. Her academic area of interest is biology.

Congratulations and best wishes to all of this year’s East Penn Press scholarship winners.