PVHS Junior Wins Discover Card Tribute Award

Putnam Valley High School is pleased to announce that 11th grader Amanda (Maggie) Chesnut has been named a 2005 Discover Card Tribute Award Scholarship Winner. Maggie was one of three New York State Gold Award winners. A total of 153 State Gold Award winners were selected from among over 4,700 applicants nationwide, each one receiving a $2,500 college scholarship.

The Discover Card Tribute Award Scholarships, given in cooperation with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), recognize the outstanding accomplishments of exemplary high school juniors in the US. The rigorous application process requires three adult recommendations as well as written "criteria statements" on the topics of Special Talents, Leadership, Community Service, and Obstacles Overcome. Maggie’s Special Talents included music, art, filmmaking, and academics. Her Leadership roles included work with Peers Influence Peers Partnership, Peer Mediation, GLSEN, the Putnam County Youth Board, the Putnam Valley Health Advisory Council, and Growing Pains, the national online support group (affiliated with the American Chronic Pain Foundation) for chronically ill teenagers, which Maggie founded in 2004 after her own decade-long struggle with celiac disease. The Obstacles Overcome and Community Service categories were also related to her work with Growing Pains and Peers Influence Peers.

Maggie is an active high honors student at PVHS who plays in the Symphonic Band and Jazz Band. She is the starting catcher for the PVHS varsity softball team, which recently won the Section One title and (at press time) is participating in the second round of qualifiers for the NY State Softball Championships to be held in Syracuse the weekend of June 4th. She recently represented PVHS at Presidential Classroom and the Harvard Model Congress, and is a member of the National Honor Society, Tri-M Music Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta Math Honor Society, and the Spanish Honor Society. She is the daughter of Richard and Ann Chesnut of Lake Peekskill.