Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
National Merit Scholar, National Honor Society president, Indiana Academic All-Star - Scott Davison has racked up the honors at Warsaw Community High School.
And in return, he recently bestowed an honor on the one person in his academic career who was the most influential - his seventh-grade challenge English teacher.
At the Indiana Academic All Stars banquet April 18 in Indianapolis, Davison, 18, won a motivational award from the Indiana Department of Education for his essay on Paula Harris, his former Edgewood Middle School teacher, as the "school employee who most influenced his academic career."
His essay read: "The frankness and openness with which she spoke let us know that she respected us. It was early in the year when she told my seventh-grade challenge English class, 'You are the best students in this school. Each of you has been given tremendous talent and ability. With that talent comes responsibility as society will ask more of you because of your intelligence.' She said we were the best, and she taught us like she believed it. That year we read literature and wrote essays with complexities and depth that has not been duplicated in the subsequent English classes I have taken. During that year my fullest mental capabilities were explored and utilized.
"That seventh-grade English class taught me how to think and how to put those thoughts into writing. In high school I have worked as hard as I can and taken the most challenging courses to make myself into the most capable young adult possible. My work ethic and drive for success has been based equally on my desire for personal accomplishment and my wish to prepare myself to return more to society than is asked from me as an adult."
Harris attended the Academic All Stars banquet with Davison and his principal, Paul Crousore, and she was given a plaque with the essay inscribed on it.
"It's the highlight of my teaching career," she said a few days after the banquet. "Scott was a wonderful student and an outstanding debater."
Davison, the son of Dale and Sally Davison, was one of the top 40 students in the state at the All Star banquet.
He also recently was named a National Merit Scholar, one of 2,200 in the nation to win $2,000 scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corp.
His future plans include attending Purdue University with the goal of becoming a doctor. To help in his career path, he was selected to participate in the 1998 National Youth Leadership Forum on medicine, June 21 to July 1, in Boston, Mass.
As one of 350 students from across the United States chosen for the forum based on academic achievements and interest in medicine, Scott will visit such medical schools as Harvard and Brown universities, will study under some of the nation's most distinguished medical leaders and will learn about diagnostic tools and future medical specialties.
Some of Davison's other high school activities have included Kosciusko Endowment Youth Services, Academic Super Bowl Math Team, golf team, basketball statistician, student council, Hoosier Boys State and Purdue University Golden Honor Scholar.
