Written by AMA staff (03/2006); Transcribed by JS (02/2008)
Sarah Radziunas from Northford, Connecticut, is the recipient of a $3,500 Charles Hampson Grant scholarship and an additional $250 Sig award. A graduate of North Branford High School, Sarah was in the National Honor Society, a member of the lacrosse team, and a four-year member of the school’s fencing team. She was selected to represent her school in the Connecticut State Fencing Tournament.
Sarah was an active member in several clubs including Pangea, a humanitarian organization, and Priority One, a community service organization. She has co-coached a middle-school girls’ basketball team for a number of years in summer and winter leagues.
Since age 11, Sarah has worked as an apprentice at the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Connecticut. The museum produces hands-on learning projects for area schoolchildren and Sarah has designed or redesigned a number of the projects in the museum’s catalog. Now, as a chief designer at the museum, Sarah is responsible for teaching the area youth and supervising apprentices. “My work varies from coordinating a birthday party for 20 elementary school kids to designing a project for the summer program or local school program,” she wrote. In the museum’s summer program, Sarah is the resident airplane instructor. “Whether it be an AMA Cub, an Airhare, a catapult glider, a P-30, or an A1,” she wrote, “if a camper wants to build it and fly it, I am there teaching.”
Sarah is an active member of the Wilbur and Orville Wright Society where she first began building and flying model airplanes. Introduced to the hobby by her mentor Art Ellis, Sarah became a Wakefield flier. “I am a passionate builder and an equally passionate competitor,” she wrote. “I enjoy the challenge of competition, my options, my rival’s choices, protecting my planes, and risking my planes.”
A member of the Brooklyn Skyscrapers, Sarah has competed in a number of contests from clubsponsored meets to international FAI contests and the Nats. She earned a spot on the United States Junior World Free Flight Championships Team that competed in France in 2004. Sarah plans to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and study mechanical engineering.
Congratulations and good luck, Sarah!
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