One of the things that has always puzzled me is why communities like Amsterdam have little problem recognizing and paying tribute to outstanding scholastic sports achievements while at the same time, pretty much ignoring outstanding achievement in the classroom. For example, go up to Amsterdam High School and take a look at the trophy case. Sports-related awards and tributes dominate the glass enclosed displays. Now look for similar tributes to student academic excellence. You’ll find a few but not many.

Why, for example isn’t there a permanent recognition of the Valedictorian and Salutatorian for each year’s graduating class? Once the public announcement takes place, the local newspaper shows up to take a picture and the two students honored get to make a speech at their graduation ceremony. After that it’s pretty much a “forget about them as quickly as possible” sort of recognition. It always bewildered me that students who put forth outstanding efforts in sports get their names or uniform numbers forever memorialized in impressive trophy cases that remain in place at the school just about forever so that future generations of students can be inspired by their accomplishments, while those who put forth outstanding efforts in the classroom receive no such lasting recognition. It’s backwards folks!

So I’m thinking of ways to formally memorialize the top two academic students of each graduating class in Amsterdam High School’s long history (perhaps SMI’s and Scully’s too). The first thing I need to do is complete my list of students who have been so honored, beginning with Amsterdam High School. My in-progress list appears below. As you can see there are a few holes in it and I’m asking for your help.

If any of the readers of this blog have AHS Yearbooks from 1998, 1996, 1990, 1989, 1987 or 1980, I believe the Valedictorian and Salutatorian winners for those years are included in them. Please use the comments feature of this blog to inform me of students I am missing. I also have blanks for 1979, 1975, 1924 and 1921 preventing me from having a century’s worth of the schools top students identified, so if you happen to have information for those years I’d greatly appreciate hearing from you.