Student Achievements
Preservation scholarships, international Eagle Scouts, and a Gold Award
1. Preservation scholarships
Highland Park High School seniors, take note: Interest in history or architecture can earn you a scholarship from Preservation Park Cities (PPC).
PPC awarded $2,000 scholarships to 2024 graduates Elizabeth Irvine and Sadie Smythe.
“Architecture merges my talents and interests, offering the perfect avenue for creative expression, application of engineering principles, and developing technological innovations,” Smythe said. “My dream is to revitalize, maintain, and reuse historic structures and promote sustainability in a dynamic society,”
Smythe, whose mom is a designer, worked with PPC to create preservationparkcities.wiki, which details the Top 100 Historical Homes of the Park Cities.
Irvine submitted the winning design when her class created a playhouse inspired by a Charles Dilbeck historical home for the Dallas CASA Parade of Playhouses.
“Throughout my childhood, my creativity has been intuitive, entirely expressed in the way I think and act,” she said. “From making models of houses to drawing buildings and obsessively playing home design games, I was constantly using my imagination to create original spaces.”
FROM LEFT: Deborah Brown, Elizabeth Irvine, Sadie Smythe, and 2023-2024 PPC president Amy Beale.
2. Jet-setting Eagle Scouts
Motivated Scouts, how far would you travel to earn your Eagle Scout rank?
Two Scouts with Boy Scouts of America Troop 1899, chartered by First Unitarian Church, came from Spain and Italy. They received their Eagle status during a Court of Honor celebration on May 30.
Earning Boy Scouting’s highest rank typically takes several years and requires earning 21 or more badges plus completing a project.
Inés Tomás Lobo, the daughter of Carlos Tomás and Tamara Lobo, of Spain, attended 10th grade at Highland Park High School. His Eagle project: building two structures consisting of a leaf blower and balls for the HPISD Special Education Department so children with reduced mobility could participate in Physical Education class activities.
Eleonora Campi, the daughter of Giorgio Campi and Laura Segatori, of Italy, attended 11th grade at HPHS. Her Eagle project: building a large outdoor storage unit for the Dallas Zoo so volunteers could access the tools they need all day.
Pierre and Dorothy Krouse, of University Park, served as the exchange students’ U.S. guardians.
3. Gold Award winner
Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas over the summer honored 111 members of the 2024 Girl Scout Gold Award class, making it the council with the third-highest number of Gold Award Girl Scouts in the nation.
These exceptional young women, including a Highland Park student with Troop 8257, achieved the highest honor in Girl Scouting by identifying key community challenges and developing innovative solutions.
Kaden Rice, the daughter of Anna Kay and James Rice, is a senior at Highland Park High School. Her Gold Award project: tackling the literacy challenge in Dallas ISD by creating 60 bags filled with educational tools and resources. The bags were distributed at Foster Elementary to boost the young students’ reading skills and inspire a love for books.
FROM LEFT: Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas CEO Jennifer Bartkowski, Kaden Rice, and board chair Donna Epps.
