Leite earns Rotary’s Estabrook Intern Award

SALISBURY — Sadie Leite has been awarded the 2021 Salisbury Rotary Club’s Robert Estabrook Intern Award. The award was made at a lunchtime ceremony at Noble Horizons during the regular August Rotary meeting.

Club President Ann Beizer noted that the annual Rotary award ceremony is usually a highlight of the club’s year, with funds granted to several students from the area at a dinner celebration. This year, five awards were made to area students but no dinner was held; the list was included in a list of honors for students at Housatonic Valley Regional High School that was published in the July 15 issue of The Lakeville Journal. 

The exception was the award to Sadie, which was presented in person at the Aug. 17 luncheon. She was joined by her sister, Petra, and parents Richard and Stephanie. 

The Robert Estabrook award honors the memory of  longtime Lakeville Journal owner/publisher/editor, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent and editorial page editor — and a dedicated member of the Salisbury Rotary Club.

After his death in 2011, the club created the scholarship, which includes a check for $250 and a place of honor on a plaque at the newspaper’s office in Falls Village.  

Visits with Bob were a highlight of the summer internship program. He always had true wisdom to share; he was always kind and generous; and he always treated even our youngest interns as adults worthy of respect.

Among the things that mattered most to Bob were truth and community. 

When Sadie stepped up to accept her award and speak to the Rotary members at last Tuesday’s luncheon, she said that her writing had improved during her time at The Lakeville Journal. But perhaps more important, she’d learned not only how to ask questions but also how to listen to the answers. 

“Our family has been here in Salisbury for 12 years,” she said. “And I didn’t know until this summer how many amazing and interesting stories there are here in this community.”

We hope that Sadie will return to us on future vacations at the family home in Twin Lakes; her family’s full-time residence is in Simsbury. Sadie is a rising sophomore at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., where she is an English major. She also works on the Tufts newspaper, where she covers art and culture. 

During the regular business portion of the meeting, the Rotary members discussed raising money to send shelter boxes to victims of the most recent earthquake in Haiti; and they celebrated the grant that they received, for $4,200, to buy backpacks for students in the six towns of the Region One School District. Before the luncheon, Rotary members had stuffed the backpacks with school supplies.