Giovanni Cicala is entering a select fraternity this fall.
The Kiski School senior from Avonmore hit the books, weathered the pandemic and scored high enough in a competitive scholarship exam to win an opportunity to attend Saint Vincent College tuition-free for the next four years as one of the winners of the college’s 40th annual Wimmer Scholarship Competition.
About 120 high school students have scored top marks on the college’s highly competitive scholarship exam over the last four decades to win the scholarship named for Boniface Wimmer, the Benedictine archabbot who established Saint Vincent College in 1846.
Today, alumni in that select fraternity include physicians, attorneys, research scientists and even a Saint Vincent professor who earned a doctorate at Princeton and returned to teach at his alma mater.