Members of the Kutztown Rotary Club celebrated a Student of the Month ceremony on January 3rd, 2024. One student from the Kutztown Area High School and one student from the Brandywine Heights Area High School are selected by school administrators each month throughout the school year for this award based collectively on academic achievement, school participation, and community contributions.
Honored for January were Colin Hamm from Kutztown and Samantha Defrain from Brandywine Heights. The students addressed the club members at the Student of the Month Ceremony where they demonstrated qualities of exemplary students. The ceremony occurs during the Kutztown Rotary meeting on the first Wednesday of the month at the Kutztown Tavern, where the weekly meetings for the club generally take place.
Samantha Defrain is the daughter of Jennifer and Jason Defrain of Macungie, PA. Throughout high School Samantha has stayed involved in Jazz Band and the Marching Band. Over the years she has been an active participant in Girl Scouts and the past year became a volunteer leader. One of Samantha's special interest is juggling and has been an officer for the high school Juggling Club since 2021. She stays busy working at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort, performing a variety of different responsibilities from
working in the Mountain Eatery to serving guests at the Snowsports Desk. Upon graduation Samantha plans on attending Kutztown University for a 4+1 masters program for computer science.
Colin Hamm is the son of Dale and Dawn Hamm of Kutztown, PA. Over the years in high school Colin has stayed active as a leader and mentor; he has been a BCTC Student Ambassador 2022-2024, KAHS Senior Class Mentor 2023-2024, National Technical Honor Society 2022-2024 and this year the Senior Class President. Since 2021 he has been busy with high school golf and baseball. Colin has been busy working at the Moselem Springs Golf Coarse and working doing home improvements with a small company in Kutztown. He also is a Junior volunteer firefighter at the Topton Fire Company. When he has free time he enjoys golfing and working on wood projects. After graduation Colin plans to go to the Pennsylvania College of Technology. Then one day become a project manager.