By Clark Judge
(June 5, 2025) — Girls rule.
For the fifth time in the past seven years, girls took home the Killingworth Ambulance Association’s annual scholarships, with this year’s recipients, Haddam-Killingworth High School Seniors Chase Lenart (photo above, left) and Madalynn Catalano (photo above right, with KAA’s Mary Robbenhaar-Fretz, center) among those honored on June 2, 2025 as part of the HKHS Awards Night.
But they’re also part of a trend.
Dating to 2019, the KAA has awarded 24 scholarships to high-school seniors, with all but five reserved for girls. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. In only two years during that span (2021 and 2024) did boys break the run of female honorees.
As required for the scholarships, Catalano and Lenart are Killingworth residents, have been accepted at a two-or-four-year college, were involved in community service and had GPAs of at least 3.0. In fact, each had a GPA of 3.5 or higher.
But the similarities don’t end there.
Both plan to major in nursing – Lenart at Quinnipiac University and Catalano at Emmanuel College – with each reaching that decision through care for the elderly. For Lenart, it was looking after a grandparent who exhibited early signs of dementia. As a caretaker, she said, “it felt so right that I knew I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.”
For Catalano, her interest in nursing occurred while working at a local retirement home and, later, earning her CNA certificate.
“I want to dedicate my life to increasing the quality of living,” she said, “for those who have lost their independence due to age.”
Over the past 10 years, the KAA has awarded 36 scholarships, including classes of six or five recipients each. Curiously, from 2016-18, six of the 12 recipients were male – including 2017 when Ben Chasse and Luke Bauer were the only honorees. Furthermore, in 2017-18, five of the seven recipients were boys.
But all that changed one year later. In 2019, all six honorees were girls, beginning a streak that continued this time around.
Photo by HKHS Staff
