Mount Greylock Student Wins Daniel Pearl Scholarship
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Mount Greylock Regional High School student Naomi LaChance has won the 2012 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship.The award was presented at the school's awards convocation on Thursday evening, June 7, by Daniel Bellow, a scholarship committee member and friend of Daniel Pearl.
LaChance is the daughter of David LaChance and Joan Rubel. She is a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist, National Honor Society member, class secretary and has been involved in the Youth Environmental Squad and the Gay Straight Alliance. She was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and assisted with class yearbook, and has interned at Shakespeare & Company.
In her essay as part of the scholarship appliction, she wrote, "Journalism makes my heart race. ... I want to be like Daniel Pearl, traveling the world for the sake of truth and knowledge, for humanity and for freedom."
When in Washington, D.C., last summer to attend the Al Neuharth Journalism Conference, she wrote, she visited the Newseum "where Daniel Pearl's laptop, Persian phrasebook and passport are on display. I spent a long time staring at these objects, amazed at their simplicity and the profundity of the cause they represent."
The award is given annually to a Berkshire area student who intends to follow one of Daniel Pearl's twin passions, music and journalism. LaChance plans to major in written arts, with a concentration in human rights, at Bard College.
Pearl, a former reporter for the North Adams Transcript and The Berkshire Eagle, was the south Asia news bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal in 2002. He was pursuing a news story when he was kidnapped on Jan. 23, 2002, by Pakistani terrorists. He was murdered six days later, and his body was found in May 2002.
At the time of his death, Pearl, 38, was expecting a child with his wife, Mariane. Mariane Pearl's 2003 book about the ordeal, "A Mighty Heart," was turned into a movie starring Angelina Jolie, released in 2007. A collection of Pearl's writings, "At Home in the World," was published in 2002.
The Daniel Pearl Foundation was established by Pearl's family and friends to continue his life work by promoting cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music and dialogue.
The Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship was established in 2003 with contributions from the Transcript, The Eagle, and friends of Pearl. This year's award, in the amount of $1,000, is the 10th annual, and the second awarded to a Mount Greylock student.
Judges for the scholarship competition were journalists Ruth Bass, a former Eagle editor; William Sexton, a retired international correspondent; Daniel Bellow, a former Eagle reporter; and Deb DiMassimo, a former Eagle editor and current real estate broker. Coordinator for the program is Martin Langeveld, former publisher of The Eagle and the Transcript.
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