East Haven Students Honored with College Book Award

Three residents have been awarded with the 2012 Saint Michael's College Book Award for Academic Achievement with a Social Conscience.

The award recognizes high school students who demonstrate a commitment to leadership in volunteer service and academic achievement.

Award Winners

The East Haven students honored with this year's award are:

• Michael Brainerd, a student at
• John McGovern, a student at Notre Dame High School
• Emily Orkins, a student at

Award recipients, named at schools throughout the country, are high school juniors. They must be inductees of the National Honor Society or an equivalent school-sponsored honors organization.

Additionally, the students must demonstrate a commitment to service activities in high school or community organizations — taking leadership roles in these activities.

'Indomitable Spirit'

According to a press release from the Vermont college, this year's award winners were presented with the nonfiction book First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung.

In the memoir, Ung — a 1993 Saint Michael's College graduate who has become a widely acclaimed author — gives a powerful autobiographical account, from a child's perspective, of surviving captivity during the genocidal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.

"She reveals an indomitable spirit in the face of profound suffering, including the loss of both her parents and two of her siblings," college officials stated. "Ung has written a riveting memoir about a family's survival, and in turn, about the development of Ung's on-going crusade for a landmine free world."