Three Harford County high school seniors were presented scholarships from the William J. Sacco Critical Thinking Foundation on March 11.
Receiving the ninth annual Dr. William J. Sacco Awards for Excellence in Mathematics were Bel Air High School's Michael Boom and C. Milton Wright High School's Tom Fowler.
The Foundation also presented the first William J. Sacco Mathematics Community Award to Hope Kerr, who also attends C. Milton Wright.
The scholarship accompanying the Award for Excellence in Mathematics presented to Michael and Tom is for $1,000. The Mathematics Community Award — a new award that recognizes leadership initiatives — presented to Hope is for $750.
Michael plans to attend Grove City College just north of Pittsburgh. Tom will be attending the University of Maryland, College Park, and Hope plans to attend Boston University in the fall.
Nearly 150 people attended the scholarship presentation and fundraiser for the Sacco Foundation at Liberatore's Ristorante in Bel Air.
More than $30,000 raised
Dr. John Kutcher, foundation chairman and president and CEO of Digital Innovation Inc. of Forest Hill, said the event and other donations to the foundation raised more than $30,000 to support its long-term efforts.
Donations allowed more than 30 students, teachers and their guests to attend the inaugural foundation event.
"Bill Sacco was a teacher at Bel Air High School and a mentor to young people in Harford County all of his life. We are proud to honor his memory by presenting scholarships to these outstanding young people," Kutcher said in a news release. "He would have been impressed by the skills of these students and would certainly encourage them to pursue a career in mathematics or a related field."
The scholarship program began in 2004 and honors the late Dr. Sacco for his lifetime accomplishments in the field of applied mathematics.
To date, the scholarship program has been sponsored by Digital Innovation, which will transition its support to the foundation. The William J. Sacco Foundation was created following Dr. Sacco's passing on July 20, 2011.
Expanding programs
Kutcher said the foundation will expand its student scholarship program in 2013 to include graduating seniors from all high schools in Harford County.
In addition, the foundation will introduce the Sacco Educator Awards to recognize exceptional mathematics educators in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Kutcher said the Educator Awards will assist teacher recipients with their continuing education costs and their support of extracurricular student activities.
Among those attending the inaugural foundation event March 11 were Dr. Sacco's widow, June Sacco, representatives of the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Bel Air, C. Milton Wright and Harford Technical High Schools, the Science and Math Academy of Aberdeen High School, as well as friends and colleagues of Dr. Sacco.
"Now that we are fully off the ground, we look forward to extending the scholarship program to include all high schools in Harford County," Kutcher said. "We expect to be hosting an even larger event next year."
Pioneer in trauma registry
The William J. Sacco Critical Thinking Foundation was established to honor the life's work of Dr. Sacco, a pioneer in trauma registry research who made key contributions to the development of trauma severity scores with applications to patient triage, tracking and outcomes evaluation, from the earliest days of trauma registries.
During his career, Dr. Sacco taught at Bel Air High School, worked for the Department of Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground and was named chief research consultant for the American College of Surgeons Major Trauma Outcome Study.
Dr. Sacco co-developed TRISS, a trauma injury survey system that remains in use today. For his work in the field of trauma medicine, he was given the highest honor of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma when he was named an Honorary Fellow of the association. He also authored 15 books and more than 200 papers.
For more information on the William Sacco Foundation for Critical Thinking, visit http://www.SaccoFoundation.org.
Digital Innovation Inc., headquartered in Forest Hill, is a leading provider of trauma database software. Digital Innovation is driven to design leading medical registry solutions for those at the forefront of trauma patient care.
DI aligns itself with visionary leaders in the medical community to develop comprehensive software solutions for the trauma industry. DI's products are used throughout the United States and can be found around the world in trauma centers and hospitals.
For additional information on Digital Innovation Inc., which is celebrating 25 years, visit http://www.dicorp.com.