Honored By Alma Mater
by Paul Kingston
LaShawn spent his afternoon Wednesday enjoying the company of high school students who are where he once was, and dream of going where he's gone.
The Olympic 400m champion was honored with LaTasha Colander Clark at the Wilson High School Distinguished Alumnus Awards Luncheon, where happy teenagers enjoyed stories of Beijing and received autographs. As reported by the Virginian-Pilot:
From a hotel ballroom table Wednesday, Anthony Lee, an 18-year-old varsity athlete at Wilson High School, looked at Wilson alumni-turned-Olympians LaTasha Colander Clark and LaShawn Merritt and dreamed.
Lee wants to compete in the Olympic Games, too.
"It seems like if they can do it, anybody can do it," he said.
Lee and about 50 other Portsmouth public school students, many of them athletes, were among about 300 people, including business, city and school leaders, who feted Colander Clark and Merritt at the Portsmouth Schools Foundation's 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Awards.
The foundation, a non profit that raises money to help the school division, honored the homegrown Olympians not because they won gold medals but because they competed in the Olympics, Maureen Mizelle, the group's executive director, said.
The athletes received plaques and news that scholarships in their names will be awarded to Portsmouth students next year.
"Believing is achieving," Merritt said. "Whatever you want to do, you can get it done."
RELATED STORIES
Two Portsmouth Olympic stars honored by alma mater (Virginian-Pilot, Dec. 4, 2008)
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/two-portsmouth-olympic-stars-honored-alm...
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