32 Named as 1997 Rhodes Scholars

L.A. Times Archives

Dec. 9, 1996 12 AM PT

From Associated Press

A volunteer during the Afghan civil war, a Harvard student who worked in South African black townships and a water polo-playing physicist are among 32 Americans named as 1997’s Rhodes scholars.

“I feel incredibly honored,” Kweli Ebon Washington said Sunday from Boston.

Washington, who went to Harvard from Berkeley, Calif., is an anthropology and social studies major who is a writer and editor for two campus publications. He has also worked in development and job training programs in the South African townships.

His parents and historical figures were role models for his public service, Washington said.

“I’m definitely standing on the shoulders of giants, in terms of my immediate loved ones and the people throughout the ages,” he said.

Hamed Rahim Wardak said his experience in 1992 and 1994 in the civil war in his native Afghanistan prompted him to study ways of building peace. His family fled the country to seek political asylum in the United States, but he returned to help distribute medical supplies and food in two small villages west of the capital, Khabul.

The Arlington, Va., resident is a government major with a special emphasis on political theory at Georgetown University.

Rhodes scholarships were established at the turn of the century by the estate of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonialist. The winners were announced Saturday by the Rhodes Scholarship Trust at Pomona College in Claremont.

They will receive scholarships to attend Oxford University in England next fall.

Nine women studying science or medicine were among the scholars this year; the competition was opened to women in 1976.

Olivia White, a double major in math and physics at Stanford, said she simply likes grappling with the two disciplines.

“You have to be aware what empirical evidence is telling you,” White said from her home in Salt Lake City.

White is working on an honors thesis in theoretical physics and is a member of the varsity water polo team.

UCLA chemistry major Annette Salmeen, who won a gold medal in freestyle relay swimming at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, is another Rhodes winner. She is from Ann Arbor, Mich.

Other Californians include Eugenio Fernandez of Pasadena (Notre Dame), Benjamin T. Jealous of Pacific Grove (Columbia) and Daniel P. Kim of Agoura Hills (Harvard).

The Rhodes scholars for 1996, listed by district where the application was filed (the city provided by the candidate may be the hometown or college town):

DISTRICT 1

Joshua Civin, New Haven, Conn., Yale

Kerry Francis, Fairfield, Conn., Georgetown

Daniel P. Kim, Agoura Hills, Calif., Harvard

Tali Farinah Farhadian, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Yale

DISTRICT 2

Benjamin T. Jealous, Pacific Grove, Calif., Columbia

Jessika E. Trancik, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell

Jonathan Levine, Merion, Pa., Cornell

Tess Thompson, Boalsburg, Pa., Penn State

DISTRICT 3

John M. Ackerly, Washington, Williams