New Teddy

I was having lunch with my parents on Thursday at Mexicali in Williston (Yes, I happened to be in Vermont for the day), when two people carrying balloons, a box, and an envelope walked up to my table. “Are you Tyler?” they asked. “Ummmm, yes,” I answered, thinking at first, They clearly have the wrong Tyler, then once I realized that they meant me, How did they find me here? I’ve only been in Vermont for 16 hours!

I only applied for one scholarship this summer. It was for students in Science/Technology/Engineering fields, and it was offered by the New England Federal Credit Union. Since I hadn’t already heard from them, I assumed that I hadn’t won. Turns out that they had contacted my parents a few weeks earlier, and since I was going to be in Vermont they wanted to hand-deliver it. The other two winners were students at UVM, so they had no problem tracking them down, but since I am usually in Rochester, they wanted to know if there was any chance that I was going to be around.

Most scholarships that I’ve won have notified me with a congratulatory letter, then sent the check to my school. The notable exception was the Toyota Community Scholars Program, which brought all their winners together for an awesome celebration weekend in St. Louis which included a dinner cruise down the Mississippi, a tour of the Toyota Plant, and a formal dinner at Churchill Downs, site of the Kentucky Derby. Even they, however, didn’t track me down in person and tell me I’d won the scholarship. I thought it was extremely nice of NEFCU to not only bring me the check personally, but also to give me balloons. The best part, however, was that they had gone through the trouble of personalizing a Vermont Teddy Bear for me, dressed in a track suit with my name embroidered on the sweatshirt (I added the shades). I took him back to school with me, and now he sits on my bookcase. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to name him yet. It would be weird to call him Tyler, but then again, he does already seem to have a name. I guess I’ll just call him “Teddy” for now.