“You’re all winners,” Trentini committee member Ruth Ann Dyer told the six candidates for the 2009 Trentini Scholarship Award, but it was Kiley Brynne Pontrelli who won the $30,000 scholarship.
          The other finalists – Davis Gregory Allen, Julie Brianne Demuynck, Ashley Caroline Packett, Amanda Grace Shaw and Elizabeth Tacy – were each awarded a $1,000 scholarship.
          All six and their dates as well as Mark Shimmel, who was named the second winner of the Technical School Award, were dressed for that night’s Senior Prom. A 20-passenger Hummer limo waited for them in the parking lot at The Forks Cafeteria during the dinner and speeches.
          James Warren, who helped establish the Trentini Foundation, spoke movingly and amusingly about Anthony Trentini, the coach for the high school’s first football team, the Bulldogs, after Wake Forest College moved to Winston-Salem. “He ran us into the ground, but he was with us.”
          The Trentini Foundation currently gives $47,000 each year to students and teachers at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School and other Wake Forest schools. The $30,000 for the four-year Trentini Scholarship is the largest single amount. Then there is the $5,000 given to the five Trentini finalists, the $2,000 for the Technical School Award, and the teacher grants totaling up to $10,000 the foundation, working with the Wake Forest Chamber of Commerce, awards each December.
          Saturday night Trentini Foundation President Tommy Murray was able to announce another generous contribution to the community.
          James and Carol Warren are giving an unspecified amount but “thousands of dollars” for the new J.L. Warren Grant to support and inspire the faculty at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School. The money, which Murray said will probably change in amount from year to year, will pay for seminars, projects and continuing education. It will allow, he said, Principal Tina Hoots to retain and recruit excellent teachers and demonstrate the community supports the school. The award honors James Warren’s father, who was a longtime banker and Boy Scout leader.
          The large crowd of over 200 found that Wake Forest University Head Football Coach Jim Grobe is as good a speaker as he is a coach. He was, of course, flushed with the success of his recent seasons, but he said is still “busy chasing championships.”
          His success, he said, is based on the character of the student players he recruits. He tells his assistant coaches to base their selections first on the character of the potential recruits, second on their goal to leave with a degree, and third on their desire to win a championship. “Your job depends on it.”
          There could be excuses, he said. Wake Forest is a small school – 4,300 students – and is said to be too tough academically. There is a small pool of players, “more like a pond,” he said, and it has one of the toughest if not the toughest schedules in the nation. “It helped me recruit better players,” Grobe said.
          Pontrelli, the daughter of Lance and Samantha Pontrelli of Wake Forest, will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall to major in education. She is the goalie for the woman’s soccer team at Wake Forest-Rolesville High and was voted the most valuable player by her teammates as well as being named an all-conference and all-region player.
          She was also a member of the woman’s basketball team, Key Club, SADD, and the student government association treasurer. She was named to the National Honor Society and the Beta Club. Outside of school she has been involved with the Tiny Tots Sports Camp, the Dream League, Habitat for Humanity and volunteered at Carolina House.