villanova honors essay

Falvey Library Blog

Honors program senior theses – now online.

• Posted by: Rebecca Oviedo
• Posted Date: June 24, 2020
• Filed Under: Library News
• Tags: honors , research , Scholarship , thesis

By Rebecca Oviedo

Each year theses submitted by Villanova’s undergraduate Honors Program graduating class are added to the Villanova Digital Collection in Falvey’s Digital Library. This research becomes part of the permanent records of the University, kept by Villanova University Archives.

These capstone theses represent the culmination of Villanova students’ academic experience and are valuable records of the community’s scholarly output. They also capture the intellectual trends and contemporary issues that were important to students at a particular point in time.

The theses of this year’s senior class of 2020 are no different. The most current pressing issue of systemic racism is discussed across topics centered on education, voting rights, and access to birth control. Vaccines (and the anti-vaccination movement) are studied through the academic lenses of students from the Department of Biology, the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing. There are submissions in creative writing, and extensive reports on research conducted in campus labs. Several essays touch upon ethics in medicine and public health, and more than one address gender bias and depictions in sports and the media. One Wildcat hypothesized on “Quantifying Jay Wright’s Greatness.”

At the conclusion of this most unusual academic year, each and every Wildcat can be proud of their academic achievements.

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Is the honors program worth it.

I was accepted to Villanova early action and they had originally told me that “we cannot offer you a place in the Honors Program at this time”. Now like 4-5 months later they emailed me today saying a spot opened and they are not inviting me to the Honors Program. I did not know I was even still being considered and now I am asking for advice. Is the Honors Program worth it? What are the pros and cons? Do the benefits outweigh the increased difficulty in course (if it is more difficult)?

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• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences /
• Academic Programs /
• Augustine and Culture Seminar Program /
• ACS Writing Awards

ACS WRITING AWARDS

ACS serves as a first-year foundational writing class, for which students create a portfolio of their best work. As an important part of the program, each year we honor outstanding writing submitted by students from their Ancients 1000 and Moderns 1001 classes. Our award categories include analytical and creative writing. Work is submitted anonymously for review.

The Dr. John A. Doody Award

Named for the founder of the Augustine and Culture Seminar Program, the award recognizes the most accomplished thesis-driven essays focusing on one or more texts from the Ancients course. Essays which analyze pieces of art from other mediums (paintings, sculpture, music) which connect to course texts and themes are also most welcome.

The Veritas Award

At Villanova, we live by the virtues of Veritas -truth- Unitas - community - and Caritas -service. Augustine teaches us to seek the truth tirelessly, diligently, and passionately. This award honors students who seek to accomplish this task through writing about texts they encountered in their Moderns course. Essays which analyze pieces of art from mediums (paintings, sculpture, music) which connect to course texts and themes are also most welcome.

The Seamus Heaney Award

Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, was a great friend to Villanova's Irish Studies Program and a visiting scholar on campus. This award recognizes the most accomplished thesis-driven essays composed for an Honors section of ACS, focusing on one or more texts from the Ancients and Moderns course.

The Earl Bader Award

Former Villanova English Department Chair Earl Bader, PhD, served as the chair of the ACS Writing Awards committee at its inception, encouraging student originality of thought and self-expression. This award recognizes creative work integrally linked with ACS texts that demonstrates knowledge and insight. Seeking submissions that epitomize originality, have a strong sense of voice, include vivid imagery, and reflect creative risks. Essays from both Ancients and Moderns are welcome.

The Robert Russell, OSA Award

Named for Father Russell, who established the first Villanova graduate program in Philosophy and the annual "Saint Augustine Lecture," this award recognizes the most accomplished essay on St. Augustine's Confessions. Competitive essays in this category will engage with Augustinian thought in thorough, innovative and exciting ways.

Application Criteria

To apply for any of these awards, please review the following criteria before submitting:

• Applicant must be a currently enrolled/registered Villanova University student.
• Accepted electronic submissions format in Microsoft word only.
• One submission per student, per category permitted.
• Applicant's name   SHOULD NOT APPEAR  anywhere on the manuscript (committee review is anonymous).
• All citations must be correct and complete.
• Submission deadline is the Wednesday, May 30, 2024 at 12:00 p.m.

AUGUSTINE AND CULTURE SEMINAR

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St Augustine Ctr Liberal Arts Rm 103 800 Lancaster Avenue Villanova, PA 19085

Director Gregory Hoskins, PhD

Senior Administrative Assistant Kimberly T Coleman

CIVITAS THROUGH CARITAS

Civitas through Caritas: Cultivating Love, Cultivating Citizens is a summer program for rising high school seniors in the greater Philadelphia area.

• College of Liberal Arts and Sciences /
• Academic Programs /
• Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies /
• Latin American Studies Program

LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM

Marked by a past of colonialism, dependency, and revolutions, today Latin America is a region that with its diversity and multiculturalism represents the globalized world. Our program offers students tools and experiences that will allow them to explore Latin America.

The main goal of the Latin American Studies program is to provide Villanova students with an innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum that allows them to explore and study Latin America in depth. Offering a balanced and creative combination of language courses, comparative global courses, experiential learning, methodological and writing courses, and a great variety of electives offered through the departments of Sociology and Criminology, Political Science, History, Geography and the Environment, Theology and Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Spanish, the major and minor in Latin American Studies are designed to teach students complementary disciplinary approaches to understand the diversity, uniqueness and complexity of Latin America.

WHY LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES?

Cultural competence.

The Latin American Studies program has been conceptualized to respond to national and international demands for global citizens who are aware of cultural differences, and who value, respect, and learn from diverse cultures; show competency in different languages; and demonstrate openness, cultural competence, and ability to interact with different groups of people.

Experiences Abroad

The Latin American Studies Program provides our students with fantastic opportunities to study abroad and experience everyday life and culture in a Latin American country. The Program has widened its overseas academic presence in countries, such as Mexico, where we offer a summer abroad experience, and Costa Rica, where we offer both summer and semester experiences.

  Learn more about these and other global learning opportunities .

Connecting with local Hispanic/Latinx communities

The Latin American Studies program offers our students great internship opportunities working at local organizations in Philadelphia and Norristown where students will be able to get in contact with Hispanic/Latinx communities, promoting social, economic, educational, language, and cultural projects.  Learn more about these opportunities .

Communication and social service

Students with advanced proficiency in Spanish have the opportunity to apply their linguistic and cultural competencies in a real-world setting, while working as interpreters and translators in the Community Interpreter Internship between the Department of Spanish and the Villanova Law School Clinics.

• Guiding Principles
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UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS

• Major in Latin American Studies
• Minor in Latin American Studies

Program Director Raúl Diego Rivera Hernández, PhD  Associate Professor,  Romance Languages and Literatures

GLOBAL INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES PROGRAMS

• Global Interdisciplinary Studies Department
• Africana Studies
• Arab and Islamic Studies
• Asian Studies
• Critical Language Minors
• Cultural Studies
• Gender and Women's Studies
• Irish Studies
• Peace and Justice Studies
• Russian Area Studies
• Sustainability Studies

LAS PODCAST

News & events, julissa granados, clas '24.

Julissa Granados, CLAS '24, double major in GIS (Latin American Studies) and Psychology, received the 2023 Carmelita Manning Community Service Award of the Pan American Association of Philadelphia. Julissa was recognized for her work as a student mentor for the Community Interpreter Program, an internship between the Villanova Department of Spanish and the Charles Widger School of Law. As a mentor, Julissa supports undergraduate students with advanced proficiency in Spanish to develop their interpretation and translation skills while helping Villanova student lawyers to legally represent and communicate with low-income clients from the Hispanic community.

Natalie Schirmacher, CLAS '24

Natalie Schirmacher, CLAS '24, double major in GIS (Latin American Studies) and Spanish, earned the 2023 St. Catherine of Siena Undergraduate Research Award for her essay "The Impact of the Argentinian State in the Construction of the Mapuche Terrorist Identity: A Case Study of the Repression of the Lof Lafken Winkul Mapu.” Natalie’s essay was originally written in Spanish while studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the Fall 2022 semester, and then she worked on the self-translation to English. The Catherine of Siena Award recognizes student research contributions to the study of peace and justice issues.

Villanova Honors / Scholarships Discussion

@madp01 I think some may be a little put off by your comment about not being great writers, including myself. My son happened to have a pretty amazing Villanova essay, which probably should have been his common app essay because it was just that good. I would even go further and say it would be the kind of essay that teachers would use in their classes to demonstrate a great college essay. I don’t believe it had anything to do with his writing at all. I think it had to do with the fact that he walked away from the presidential scholarship because he had no intention of attending Villanova once he got his acceptance to ND. And now, in fact, he has gotten offered dean’s scholarship at Fordham ($37.5 per year), Banneker Key Scholarship at Maryland (full ride), and semifinalist for ND scholarship AND invited to scholars program at ND. I think S19 was admitted to ND because of his amazing resume of service in addition to his high stats. Afterall, ND is all about being a “force for good in the world.” Furthermore, his Villanova essay was all about homelessness and his service includes living in a homeless shelter and building houses for hurricane victims among many other regular interactions with the needy. I am sure you “stood out” but to come out and tell people somehow their resume was not service oriented enough or that their writing wasn’t good enough is insensitive. You do not know each and every circumstance of why people were not invited to scholarship or even accepted. “Just my opinion.”

Honors College Scholarship

Renew your mind.

The Honors College Scholarship enables students at Oklahoma Wesleyan University’s residential Honors College to make creative connections across disciplines and grow into lifelong Christian learners.

The Honors College is open to students from all majors, encouraging them to study great thinkers of the past to serve God’s world in the future.

The recently revised scholarship is built to attract students who possess strong academic skills as well as a passion for critical thinking and Christian service. This is an opportunity for you, the student, to follow Paul’s admonition to be transformed by the renewing of your mind in the context of a Christian community (Romans 12:2).

• Scholarship Award Details
• Applicant Requirements

The Honors College Scholarship is worth $11,000 annually and is awarded based on a committee selection process which includes the initial application essay, references, and an interview.

The Honors College Scholarship is renewable by maintaining a minimum 3.3 cumulative GPA, living in on-campus housing, participating in specified leadership opportunities while at OKWU, and remaining good standing with the Office of Student Development.

Once awarded, Honors College Scholarship students are obligated to undergo leadership training and fulfill a minimum number of leadership and community service hours each semester.

3.5 minimum high school cumulative GPA

Scholarship recipient is required to live on-campus

Letter of reference – (must be a non-OKWU reference)

An interview, conducted either on Zoom or in person.

A 2-3 page essay in response to a prompt provided by the Director of the Honors College. Though the prompt may change from year to year, the essay provides a sample of academic writing to determine if the student is capable of Honors-level work.

The deadline for students to have a completed Honors College Scholarship application packet submitted is:

• November 1, 2024 for early decision
• April 1, 2025 for regular decision

Early decision is encouraged as there are a limited number of Honors College Scholarships available.

A complete Honors College Scholarship application packet includes:

• Honors College Application
• Reference letter (see applicant requirements above for reference letter details)
• 2-3 Page Essay (name included on essay, see applicant requirements above for essay details)
• 2025-26 FAFSA Submitted to OKWU (available by end of December 2024) – or signed Federal Financial Aid Waiver on file with OKWU’s Financial Aid office

Approved applicants will receive an invitation to interview for the scholarship.

* Eligible students must be a first-time freshman for the 2025-26 academic year.

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Honors college scholarship application.

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Application Essay

In Plato's Allegory of the Cave , we encounter prisoners who have been chained in a cave their entire lives, seeing only shadows cast on the wall in front of them. When one prisoner is freed and exposed to the light of the sun, he realizes the deeper reality beyond the shadows. This journey from darkness to light represents the pursuit of truth, wisdom, and understanding.

At OKWU, we believe that the pursuit of truth is central to both intellectual and spiritual growth. After reading Plato’s allegory (see here), consider how this journey from shadow to light parallels experiences or desires in your life. Reflect on ways you have moved from ignorance or confusion to deeper understanding, whether academically, spiritually, or personally.

In two to three typed pages , draw connections between Plato’s allegory and your own educational journey and development. More importantly, rather than speaking only of your own life, demonstrate a careful reading of Plato by relating lines or passages from the allegory to your own experience.

• How has your pursuit of knowledge, faith, or personal growth mirrored the themes of the allegory?
• How do you see an Honors education as aiding in the process Plato describes?
• What would a distinctly Christian reading of this allegory offer to set it apart from a merely secular reading?

Your essay should reflect on how your experiences have shaped your perspective on truth and growth, as well as how a Christian Honors education aligns with your desire to seek knowledge and meaning.

• Careful reading and citation of Plato
• Relatedness and application to one’s life experiences
• Excellence and clarity of writing

I am listed as a student's reference

Honors college scholarship reference.

Please rank the nominee in the following areas from 1-5, with 1 being low and 5 being high.

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How to Write the Villanova University Application Essays 2017-2018

Villanova is a highly competitive research university with an admissions rate of about 40%. On a weighted 4.0 scale, the middle 50% of GPAs range from 4.00 to 4.44 and the middle 50% of test scores are 1360-1480 for the SAT and 31-34 for the ACT.

Beyond the numbers, however, probably the most important thing to know about Villanova as an institution is its deep connection to the Order of Saint Augustine in the Roman Catholic Church. As one of many Catholic universities in the United States, Villanova is proud of its religious affiliation. As their website states:

Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of Saint Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. Villanova prepares students to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them.

The strength of the Villanova experience comes in part from the University’s welcoming community. All members are bonded together by a shared responsibility to uphold the ideals of Saint Augustine and let the principles of truth, unity and love guide their lives. The Villanova community helps students grow intellectually, professionally and spiritually, and challenges them to reach their full potential.

As this mission statement suggests, Villanova strives to be an inclusive university, no matter what faith tradition its students come from. There are no requirements to attend Mass beyond one convocation ceremony at the beginning of your first year. There are, however, some program requirements that ask all students to engage with the tradition of Catholic thinking like the university’s required “ Augustine and Culture Seminar .” Before applying to Villanova, you should review those course requirements and ask if they seem right for you.

Since this is an article about how to write your personal statement for Villanova, you may have some questions about what role your faith (or lack thereof) should or should not play in your admissions essays. As a general principle it is worth saying that Villanova’s prompts, like those of most applications, are looking to get to know you as a person. If your faith is an important part of your story, you should feel free to talk about it.

If not, keep in mind that Villanova is most interested in those students who demonstrate the capacity to “think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others.” You need not write about being Catholic in order to exemplify those qualities.

One final note on word length: For its personal essay, Villanova asks for a “minimum 1 page double-spaced.” While they do not state a maximum word length, you should probably aim for 1.5 pages double-spaced, or 500 words. Longer is not better; the admissions officials have a lot of essays to get through and they will appreciate comprehensiveness and getting to the point.

Villanova Application Essay Prompts

Choose one of the following, minimum 1 page double-spaced.

Essay Option 1

At villanova, we believe that it is our similarities that make us strong, but our differences that make us stronger. please tell us about a relationship that you have with someone who is different from you and how that has changed who you are today..

This is a version of the “diversity” essay that appears on the Common Application in the form of the prompt which asks, “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful, they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.”

The difference here is that rather than focusing on the particularities of your own background or identity, Villanova’s essay is asking you to reflect on your relations to others rather than just on your relation to yourself. This means that you might very well be talking about your own background, but that you will be connecting that history to the histories of others.

For example, maybe your parents emigrated from Vietnam. If you were responding to the Common Application’s prompt, you might write about navigating a world where you spoke Vietnamese at home and English at school. This essay would focus on your own personal struggles, perhaps the challenges of trying to translate a letter from your school to your parents. But your response to Villanova’s prompt should have a slightly different focus. You might talk about the time you spent as an after-school tutor for a middle school in your neighborhood that serves a large number of Latinx students. How was their experience similar to or different from your own?

Another way of thinking about this essay is to recognize that “difference” can mean a lot of things: not just racial or ethnic identity, but also differences in age, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, musical taste, political beliefs, and ability or disability. Of course, not all of these differences are parallel and equivalent: Musical taste is a matter of your own personal preferences, but a racial identity is something that you are hailed into regardless of your preferences.

If you are Catholic, you could write a meaningful essay about a conversation you had with a Muslim friend about what Ramadan meant to them. When does it sound like they are describing a kind of practice and experience similar to what you feel during Lent? And what is different about how you each live these rituals?

If your aunt uses a wheelchair, you might write about going to lunch with her. What did you learn about how your community helps (or falls short of helping) those with different mobility needs gain access to public facilities.

A few last words: The way this prompt is worded, it might seem to be suggesting you write a narrative where you, an unmarked “normal” person, encounter someone who is “different” and then are somehow enlightened by that encounter. But people who are “different” do not just exist to be constantly educating those whose bodies pass for normal in their communities. A less clichéd and more nuanced essay might focus less on the moment in which you were suddenly enlightened and more on the process of continuous study that you’ve undertaken as part of your relationship with someone who is different from you.

Maybe one of your friends came out as trans and you left that conversation convinced that you needed to do some reading. Perhaps some internet browsing led you to Beatriz Precaido’s book, Testo Junkie. How did that text help you hear what your friend was trying to tell you about the way they experience their body?

Essay Option 2

‘become what you are not yet.’ – saint augustine, when you daydream, who do you hope to become in the future.

The trick to answering this question is to recognize that they are not just asking for your idyll speculations about the future. A strong answer will talk about how your dreams are grounded in your life experience. Remember: When you are writing an admissions essay, you have the opportunity to share something with the admissions committee that they would not be able to get from your grades and test scores. Since Villanova only asks for one essay, you should try to use it to tell them something about your experience.

For example, you might write an essay about how you loved playing French horn in orchestra, and that you one day hoped to dress in a black gown every night and perform in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. But maybe your dreams changed when you spent some time as a volunteer music instructor at your local children’s hospital. Maybe you were not working on the most complicated songs, but you were teaching the children about rhythm and movement, how to sing (somewhat) in tune, and giving them something to think about apart from their sickness. Inspired by the program’s founder, maybe the person you hope to become in the future is one who finds a way to combine music with healthcare, especially for young people.

Another way to approach this prompt is to write about someone you admire.  Maybe you have always looked up to your grandfather who put his life on the line to march with the National Farm Workers Association . If you do talk about someone who you admire (a popular approach to this essay) be sure that you speak about what you have done to start following their footsteps. This is, after all, ultimately an essay about your own dreams. Maybe you have recently marched in support of DACA ? What do you hope to do in order to advance the cause of immigrant rights in the future?

As I mentioned above, just because this prompt begins with a quote from St. Augustine, that does not mean you have to address the religious aspect of your daydreams or hopes for the future. On the other hand, if your faith is important to you, you should not be shy talking about how it helps you imagine “what you are not yet.”

One last note: The prompt may drop in a quote from a philosophical heavy-hitter, but you should not take that as a cue that you should drop in a quote from some fancy person. Admissions officers are tired of reading potential applicants misquote Gandhi as they say that they hope to “be the change they want to see in the world.”

Essay Option 3

Describe a book, movie, song, or other work of art that has been significant to you since you were young and how its meaning has changed for you as you have grown..

This prompt is about more than just your favorite novel. At its heart, this prompt is asking you to tell a story about your own personal development through your relationship to a work of art.

It might be tempting to choose a fancy piece of literature in order to show off your intellectual prowess. But you should not feel pressured into claiming that you’ve read Gravity’s Rainbow every summer since you were eight years old. The admissions committee is more interested in seeing that you are a thoughtful person who is capable of reflecting on how you have changed. If you can tell that story best by writing about Pokémon, Episode 70, “ Go West Young Meowth ,” so be it.

You might say that as a child you were mostly drawn to the flashy drawings and silly cartoons. But maybe when you saw that episode again in your high school years, you were fascinated with how it imagines that an animal might learn to speak “human language.” This might have been one piece of your growing interest in the philosophy of human-animal relations and the different ways that species communicate with each other.

Of course, not everything that we read as a child ages well. One way to approach this essay is to talk about something that you might have once loved, and perhaps still love, but has come to seem more problematic. For one example of what such an essay might look like, you might turn to Daniel Jose Ruiz’s essay on Brian Jacques’s Redwall series. For Ruiz, the fantasy world where mice and badgers were good guys and weasels and ferrets were bad guys was a place where he felt included as a child:

I felt a kinship with the badger characters. They were large, strong, a bit stubborn, with big tempers, but they were good guys and heroes. Redwall seemed to say that I could be a good guy and a hero even though I was big for my age, stubborn, and volatile.

But as Ruiz grew older and read more, parts of the Redwall books called out for critique:

You can do a pretty thorough Marxist reading of Redwall as a parable of the righteous nature of bourgeois property relations. The mice, hares, and badgers are metaphors for the inherent superiority of the ruling class, while the vermin are symbols of the degenerate nature of the proletariat.

In the real world, however, few people just decide to become bandits unless their situation dictates that this is one of the better options for survival. I can’t recall a single time where the [mice and badgers try] to establish a mutually beneficial agreement with the vermin, as opposed to occasional acts of charity that don’t address systemic issues.

However you choose to write about your changing relationship to a piece of art, your focus should be on how you and your interpretation of that work have changed over time. You do not want to get bogged down with lots of plot summary. Notice how, as you read Ruiz’s essay, no sentences are given over to just describing the plot: Every sentence weaves summary and analysis together, with constant references to his own personal story.

Finally, there is one last possibility for how you might approach this prompt that is a little bit more experimental. The prompt asks you to address how your developmental story changed the way you understand a work of art. But what if you reversed the prompt and asked how a work of art changed the way you understood your own developmental story? Perhaps a relevant essay in this vein is Ashon Crawley’s poetic meditation on Barry Jenkins’s Oscar winning 2016 film, Moonlight .

“Sometimes fiction functions to produce memory,” Crawley says, and then goes on to tell the story of how he grew through three different nicknames (Berry Berry, Cookie, and Ashon) parallel to, but not exactly the same as, the film’s main character who is known as “Little,” then “Chiron,” then “Black.”

Even if you end up structuring your essay in a more traditional manner, it is worth noting how Crawley zooms in on precise details that might have been mundane but vibrate with meaning in the force of his prose — a change in email address, a choir membership card, a Walter Hawkins song…

As you respond to Villanova’s prompt, you will not be able to tell the admissions committee every twist and turn in the story of your maturation, but your essay might become bland if you only speak in vague general terms. Ashon slices through this dilemma by focusing on precise details, little snippets from his life, that tell some, but not all, of his story. As you write, it is worth considering what little moments you might choose from your own life’s story to represent how you’ve changed.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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Tourney honors memory of Heights player

Courtesy photo From left: the late Katie Grace Wentz, along with her mom, Brenda Wentz, sister Alyssa Wentz and her dad, Joe Wentz.

By John Hartsock

[email protected]

Katie Grace Wentz was a young woman who pursued the sport of softball with a passion.

She began playing softball at the age of 5 and continued her participation in the sport both in travel ball and as a varsity player at Cambria Heights High School.

After Wentz’s tragic, sudden passing in October 2019 from a pulmonary embolism that she suffered at the age of 16 during her junior year at Cambria Heights, her parents, Joe and Brenda Wentz, along with her older sister, Alyssa, wanted to do something special to honor and preserve her memory.

The Wentz family came up with the idea of a softball tournament which has been held every summer, and which will celebrate its fifth anniversary this Friday through Sunday. Competition will be available for a total of 11 teams this year in the ages 14U and 16U divisions, with games being played at three locations –two fields at Patton Park, along with the softball field at Cambria Heights High School.

In its five years of existence, the tournament has grown from four teams in its first year to its current 11, and teams have entered the tourney from various locales — Patton, Hastings, Ebensburg, Altoona, Hollidaysburg, Claysburg, and from as far away as St. Marys.

“Katie loved softball, she loved traveling to her games, and she especially loved pitching,” said Brenda Wentz, who pointed out that Katie Wentz was a pitcher and played first base on the softball field. “(Katie’s passing) was such a heartbreak that we didn’t see coming, and she touched so many lives. This is something that we wanted to do, to honor her memory, and to keep her memory alive.”

Since the tournament’s inception, the Wentz family has been giving high school senior students who complete personal essays $500 scholarships to put toward their college expenses.

“We gave out nine scholarships last year,” said Joe Wentz, who said that senior students from four different school districts have received the scholarships to date. “The first two years, any student athlete was eligible, but in the last two years, we’ve narrowed the eligible persons to either girls who are playing in this tournament, or to other senior students who have helped out with this tournament – by doing things like working the concession stands, selling 50/50 tickets, or lining the fields to get them ready for play.”

The essays, which are submitted to Cambria Heights High School and then to the Wentz family for judging, include personal accounts with subject matter like how playing softball has positively affected an athlete’s life, or the story of how another person has been influential in encouraging an athlete to participate in sports.

Area businesses and other individuals have also donated gift baskets to be raffled off as prizes at the tournament, and tournament T-shirts will be available for sale for those attending the event, in which teams pay a $350 registration fee to enter.

“The number of teams has increased,” Joe Wentz said. “I guess in the last two years, the word is getting out, but we still want to keep it to 11 or 12 teams so that it doesn’t get so big that we have to use even more fields than we are using now.”

The championship games in the two divisions will be played this Sunday.

“This is a good way to keep Katie’s memory alive, and this event also gives some of the girls an extra tournament to play in during the summer,” Joe Wentz said. “We wanted to keep the tournament competitive, but we want the girls playing in the tournament to have fun, too.”

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Curve use homers to get victory

From Mirror reports RICHMOND, Va. — Tsung-Che Cheng hit his team-leading 11th home run of the season, while ...

Inexperienced players will get their chances to play in 2024

CC boys, girls down Altoona

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