Bethel Park alumni surprise senior with $10,000 scholarship

A first-time meeting and subsequent conversation between a Bethel Park High School senior and a pair of alumni resulted in the student being offered a $10,000 scholarship.

Lily Gaston met Jeffrey and Christine (Hasselberg) Keisling, both 1975 graduates, at a dinner honoring some of the school’s distinguished alumni, held prior to the school’s National Honor Society induction ceremony in March. They spoke at length about their respective paths and found that they shared common interests.

The Keislings are strong advocates of women pursuing education and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, and during his career, Jeffrey implemented successful development, internship and hiring programs for high school and college-age students with STEM degrees.

Lily, who graduated in June, will attend Johns Hopkins University in the fall to pursue degrees in science and mathematics, and to compete on the women’s soccer team.

“Christine and I were just so impressed that Lily had the confidence and obvious leadership abilities to approach us for a friendly and very insightful discussion about careers in STEM fields,” Jeffrey, a recently retired Pfizer Inc. executive, said.

His wife added:

“Her academic and athletic accomplishments speak for themselves, but I think what stood out most to Jeff and I was her humility and strong desire to help others.”

As they talked with Lily, the Keislings became convinced that they needed to express their appreciation for the Bethel Park senior in a tangible way. Then, during her onstage National Honor Society introductory presentation, they wrote a scholarship offer to Lily on the event program and handed it to Bethel Park High School principal Joseph Villani, asking that he first review it with Lily’s parents.

Lily admits to being taken aback a bit at first, as she thought she was just engaging in a friendly discussion on issues about which she is passionate.

“It was completely unexpected,” she said. “I just wanted to hear more about Jeff’s career in using technology to improve the lives of patients, which is one of my goals, as well. It obviously never occurred to me in the moment that our friendly conversation would lead to such a generous and humbling scholarship offer.”

This was the first year in which the Alumni Hall of Fame dinner was combined with the National Honor Society induction ceremony.

“The pandemic forced us to reexamine how we did everything but it also allowed us to reimagine some of our existing traditions and to create new opportunities for our students,” Villani said. “As we looked at our National Honor Society induction ceremony and our Alumni Hall of Fame, we thought that it made all the sense in the world to use those two events to connect some of our top current students with some of our most distinguished alumni. And this is a remarkable, if completely unexpected, result of one such connection.”

The Keislings officially presented Lily with their check for $10,000 at Bethel Park High School’s Awards & Recognition night, held June 1.