By Bob Harris
The auditorium of the Electric Industry Center on Parsons Boulevard in Flushing was the site of the 52nd annual Scholarship Award Breakfast on April 1. This building is located in Community Board 8, not far from the 107th Precinct, so the board members were invited to attend; I noted about 10 Community Board 8 members amid the crowd of hundreds.
Local Union No. 3 presented 40 scholarships named in honor of former electrical union members and prominent Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr. Most of the people on the dais I did not know, but I did recognize and greet politicians such as Queens Borough President Claire Shulman, U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Rego Park), Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing) and Terri Thomson who is the Queens representative on the New York City Board of Education.
I sat next to Capt. Stephen Fischer of the 107th Precinct. We talked about the state of the precinct. I commented that I had seen some of our 10 new police officers patrolling the streets near my house. Fischer had promised to do this with the new officers to get them used to the neighborhoods in the precinct.
I walked around the tables and asked the scholarship winners if they came from Queens. Most did not, but I did find two who were products of our public schools.
Tracy Kennedy graduated from Cardozo High School. in 1999 where she had studied in the DaVinci Math and Science Program. She won the Father William J. Kelley O.M.I. Memorial Scholarship. She will begoing to the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in the fall. Her father is Edmond Kenny from Local 3.
Anthony Vittorino is graduating from Townsend Harris High School in June. A member of the Internet Publishing Club, he won the Herbert Flaum Award and also a $48,000 scholarship from St. John
