This morning, I was chatting with Mark Schiller from Proton about the scholarship winners. They had 500 applicants. The best 100 were divided among four judges. Each judge called the candidates and selected three as finalists. (I know that's 12, but they ended up with 10.)

Three weeks ago, the 10 finalists were asked to come to Long Beach with their families. One family had never flown before. Several families had never been to California before.

Once the travel arrangements were made, the judges met to pick the one winner. Each judge had gotten to know the finalists and the decision was going to be agonizing. Tom Sullivan told them that he would make the decision easy...they would all win. The judges were in tears.Only a handful of people knew what was going to happen, and they were sworn to secrecy.

On Monday night, the 10 finalists had dinner together. Afterwards, Mark asked a couple of them if they were sizing each other up. They admitted that no one thought he or she was the winner; that other students were more qualified.

When Rob Friedland announced that all 10 had won the $100,000 scholarship, the audience was on it's feet. What an incredibly generous contribution Tom Sullivan and Proton have made to these future engineers and scientists!