$29,000 in Scholarships Awarded at Junior Day
On Friday May 29, 2026 representatives of the FHS Alumni Association presented $29,000 in scholarships to college bound seniors at the school's traditional Junior Day exercises. Bob and Nancy (Morris) Foster '66 distributed $2,000 scholarships to four graduates in memory of Mary Battaini '38 and Curtis Lopes II '78. They also presented the first annual Gail (Jacobsen) Isaksen '63 Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $2,000.
Two $1,000 Memorial Brick Park Scholarships were awarded, as well as two $1,000 Joey St. Pierre '93 Memorial Scholarships that are funded by the Portas Family Foundation to students furthering their education in Fine Arts. Several scholarships funded by individual alumni (David McCombe '66 Family, Philip Whiting '67 and Mrs. Richard Garcelon '55) were presented to deserving seniors.
The Class of 1960 provided a $1,000 award, and then the five classes that finished at the top of the "Battle of the Classes" competition during the past Light-a-Light season each had representatives present to hand off a $2,000 scholarship to a deserving member of the Class of 2026. Tom Cabral '64, Nancy Foster '66, Kent Hemingway '73, Laurie Powers and Janet Collette '75, as well as Deb Canastra '76 were beaming as they handed their respective envelopes to each worthy recipient.
For those of you who have not witnessed any Junior Day exercises since you left FHS, you would be amazed at how this solemn tradition has been consistently carried out over the years. Most of the faculty members didn't graduate from our high school, and they are very impressed (and envious) with the manner in which it continues to be the culmination of the high school experience for FHS graduates.