"The
list of nominees is indeed impressive... I believe that they are
all winners. They seem to have accomplished quite a bit at this
early stage of their young lives. Young women today face many challenges;
some are new and some are not. In addition to the pressure of growing
up that all young men and women face, Libyan and Libyan-American
young women face the additional challenge of having to grow up and
assimilate in this society with its set of values and norms and
at the same time maintain a sense of their religion and cultural
values that come from the land of their parents... In
my eyes all these young women are worthy of the prize. I feel very
proud of them and of their accomplishments."
"Each and
every one has a strongly developed sense of community which is a
joy to see. I feel comforted that we, as Libyans in America, will
be represented in the future by these wonderful young women. They
are a credit to their families. I feel so bad about ranking them
and wish they could all receive the award."
"While I thank
you for giving me the opportunity for evaluating "our kids", I must
admit this was much harder than I thought it would be due to the
quality of the candidates. While I have graded students work over
the years, the candidates were so impressive that I felt it would
have been more fair to give them more than two awards."