The Maecenas Fund > Current Newsletter

To all our friends:

Our work since late last year is beginning to bear fruit.

We are extraordinarily pleased to announce the Maecenas Fund Scholars for the Class of 2006. All recently graduated from Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, and will be attending Arizona State University in nearby Tempe.

Each of them is a uniquely accomplished individual, and it gives us great pleasure to assist them. In order to increase their level of success, our awards also require certain commitments from the students.

These include:

The student must live on campus during the entire time we are providing financial assistance. We believe the transition to college life can be difficult enough that one shouldn’t compound that challenge by adding the distractions and lack of socialization that often come with living off campus.
The student must not work during their freshman year. Again, we are trying to limit the additional challenges that come with attending college. We have asked each of our scholarship recipients to think of their college career during their first year as one of having an 80+ hour a week job: school.
At the end of each semester, each student will provide to us a copy of their transcript plus a short essay on the courses they took, what was gotten out of each course (or not), as well as what courses will be taken in the next semester.

We also have asked each student not to take on any debt without consulting with us first. Our hope is to help them graduate from college debt-free so their post-college pursuits are not constrained by carrying a heavy debt load.

In return, we are committing to each student to provide financial and other support to help him or her reach the goal of graduating from college in four years.

Here are the 2006 Maecenas Fund Scholars:

Luis Gutierrez

Luis' participation in the Science and Technology Club during his junior and senior years had a major impact on his perspective and the direction he plans on taking his life.

During this time, he participated in the design and construction of highly competitive and advanced land and underwater robots. During his senior year, he captained the robot team and did the bulk of the electronics construction for the team's underwater robot (ROV) with which the team recently placed second in the college division of the MATE competition, again finishing ahead of M.I.T.

The MATE ROV competition is an international event sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education center (http://www.marinetech.org/ ) During the last three years, the Carl Hayden team has placed first (2004), third (2005) and second (2006) at the college level, and Luis was a key member of the team during the last two competitions.

Luis was also selected as the Outstanding Programming Student of the Year among Carl Hayden’s Computer Studies students. The insights from these accomplishments have led Luis to ASU’s Polytechnic campus to study engineering on a hands-on basis.

Brook Kracke

Brook is a dynamo. In addition to finishing in the top 2% of her class and being President of the National Honors Society chapter at Carl Hayden, Brook was the Outstanding Girl of her class each year at Carl Hayden, beginning with her freshman year and ending with her senior year. Moreover, she was a JROTC member and officer all four years and a varsity athlete in basketball, cross-country and softball.

In addition to these achievements, Brook also found time to do peer tutoring, as well as serve her community in several capacities, including volunteering at a local food bank and at Andre House of Arizona helping the homeless and poor in Phoenix.

Brook wastes no time in her life. It's easy to see why she "owned" the Outstanding Girl award each of her four years at Carl Hayden High School.

Brook will be attending ASU's main campus in Tempe, and intends on doing pre-med course work so she can attend medical school upon her graduation. Her intense focus and drive will serve her well in her pursuit of these ambitious goals.

Annalisa Regalado

Annalisa is the quiet one. Unassuming as she appears, she has been President of the Science and Technology Club for two years, administering a budget of $25,000 each year, while helping keep her fellow members focused on the highly competitive building tasks for their land and underwater robots.

Her quiet confidence and competence have served her well as she met with senior elected officials of Arizona, including the governor, to explain what the Club does, why it helps prepare students well beyond what the classroom can do, and why it deserves better funding from the educational establishment.

While Annalisa’s interest in engineering was deepened through her participation in the Science and Technology Club, her points of contact with club sponsors, school administrators and elected officials led her to broader interests, as well.

As a result, she will be attending the ASU – East campus where she intends to pursue a joint curriculum of engineering and business. Her goal is to be an Engineer/Marketer.

Paulina Reyes

In addition to being a scholar, Paulina is an athlete. She was on both the cross-country and track & field teams all four years at Carl Hayden, and earned a varsity letter in both sports her sophomore, junior and senior years. Her natural leadership skills were demonstrated by being elected Team Captain in both sports her last two years as well.

Paulina plans on majoring in Political Science at Arizona State as she prepares herself for a career in law after college. Paulina’s goal is to get her law degree, and become an attorney specializing in immigration law.

Paulina sees many of the challenges that arise from unequal access to higher education that we see, although from the other end of the telescope. When she graduates, she hopes to start a program in her community that will offer teenage girls the help and guidance to achieve success academically, personally and professionally.

She understands from personal experience what can hold people back from reaching their dreams, including money, and hopes to be a force for positive change in her community as she pursues her own dreams.