Whitewater High School senior Matthew Skibiel has won the 2016 Joseph Adams Senior Scholarship from the Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica (SHH), an honor society for high school students studying Spanish or Portuguese, for his dedication to the study of Spanish and excellent skills in that language.
The $2,000 scholarship is awarded to only 12 students from over 2,400 SHH chapters across the United States. Students become eligible by being an inducted member of the SHH.
Applicants are required to write a lengthy persuasive essay in Spanish on a challenging global topic and film a five-minute conversation exclusively in Spanish, without the use of any written aids, where the applicant is the dominant speaker. A selection committee appointed by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese evaluate the applications.
Whitewater High School has been a member of the Sociedad Honoraria Hispanica for the last 12 years. Both Kim Newman and Karen Dean have taught Matthew Spanish during his time at Whitewater High.
