Demoting quiet scholarship

In a flash of intuition I decided to visit the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation website to see if they had proclaimed yet their awardees of the 2006-2007 fellowships.  I hadn't heard anything, which the realistic side of me said was probably bad news, but I usually muzzle that side of me and throw it in a dark closet (where it is, I think, quite content).  The optimist in me held out hope, as is its wont, and honestly didn't take it too poorly when it read, from the "press release" issued just today (hence a flash of intuition), that I was not awarded fantastic monies to ease my way through graduate school.  Reading on, the Foundation provided brief bios of some of the "winners", and I let out an exasperated sigh.  How was I, who had led a non-heroic life of quiet if passionate academia and subtle, local public service, how was I to compete with these "heroes" of service and scholarship?

The new Jack Kent Cooke Scholars include: 

• Bess Greenberg was a college basketball star who played professionally in Denmark and Israel. While traveling the world as an athlete, she honed her photographic skills. She'll be attending the International Center of Photography in New York. 

• Ted Ehnle was working in Guatemala as a Peace Corps volunteer when he found his "calling."  It was there he began teaching music to village children.  Ted will be attending Northwestern University. 

• Natacha Chough accomplished a lot in the years since she graduated from college. She's worked with NASA in preparation for the Mars Exploration program and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan.  She hopes to become a NASA flight surgeon so she can enjoy her two loves – medicine and space exploration.

I mean, check out those buzzwords: "traveling the world", "college basketball star", "Peace Corps volunteer" (twice), "teaching music to village children", "NASA", "Mars Exploration Program", and "NASA flight surgeon".

I understand, certainly, that scholarships are meant to be given to outstanding scholars in their field.  I guess that I am, nonetheless, a little off-put in feeling like the Foundation is awarding some sort of glamorous scholarship heroism rather than those of us in a more perhaps salt-of-the-earth type job, if one that still has incredible educational and social consequence.  This leads me, in turn, to wonder if any of the awardees are going to graduate school to study library science.  I'd love to know, but, ignorant, I'd be willing to wager that none are.

Maybe I'm just a little bitter that libraries and librarians are an undervalued commodity in our society's educational and community landscapes, despite their incredible worth and potential.  That, and I was honestly pretty excited that they might just up and give me $30k a year, both years, to get my master's degree.  Can't blame a guy for a little disappointment there.  I always felt I could use a few more loans, anyway …. 

I would, though, sincerely like to congratulate the seventy-seven recipients of the Fellowship.  Way to be, and good luck with your space exploration medicinal music-teaching photography peace corps type stuff.  Me, I'd rather be a librarian.  Even a poor one.