H-ton Alum Charles Beers Embraces Bucknell
Charles Beers never holds anything back. The Huntington High School Class of 2015 member gives 100 percent to whatever he decides to get involved with and there’s plenty for him to do at Bucknell University where he is in his freshman year.
“I am really happy at Bucknell and have been working hard, but enjoying myself, too,” Mr. Beers said. “My first semester went very well. After a few weeks, Bucknell started feeling like a second Huntington to me. I met a lot of great people here through the arts residential college, which I am a part of. The program was awesome in the way it built a community of artists, ranging from singers to dancers to creative writers and allowed us all to grow into one big family.”
Mr. Beers was integrally involved in the life of Huntington High School during his four years in the building. He was the freshman class vice-president, an administrative assistant with the sophomore and junior classes and last year’s student government vice president. The teenager also served as co-editor of The Dispatch, the high school’s student newspaper and co-editor of Et Cetera, the high school’s literary magazine. He even found time to play a key role with the high school’s mock trial team, helping that group become one of Suffolk’s finest in only its first year of existence.
A skilled writer, Mr. Beers captured the Silver Key Award in Scholastic’s art and writing competition. In the Huntington Youth Writes essay competition, the teenager earned two first place and one second place award in the short story category.
The Huntington alum said one of the highlights of his first semester at Bucknell was the residential college’s trek to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “We spent the morning looking through the galleries, then traveled to the heart of Philadelphia where we were allowed to roam free,” Mr. Beers said. “It was my first time in the city and I’ll never forget exploring the hectic Reading Terminal Market or the cool stage performance we saw at the end of our trip.”
Mr. Beers is thriving academically. “I thoroughly enjoyed the classes I took in the first semester, including psychology, computer science, Spanish and a creative writing course,” he said. “All of these classes challenged me in some way and my creative writing teacher, Professor [Joe] Scapellato offered to meet with me on a weekly basis to talk about the novel I hope to write someday. It’s awesome how the teachers at Bucknell are just as supportive and invested in the student body as Huntington’s were.”
The Huntington grad’s spring semester schedule includes the next computer science course in the sequence, another creative writing class and courses in political science and economics. “I am still completely undecided on my major, but I enjoy being able to experiment with a variety of disciplines to see what works and what doesn’t,” Mr. Beers said.
The teenager is a news reporter for the Bucknellian, the university’s campus newspaper. He’s also a Presidential Fellow, performing research for Dean M. Lynn Breyfogle of the College of Arts and Sciences.
“Another Presidential Fellow and I spent the first semester planning the production of a newsletter for the college to help better establish our identity on campus and promote the achievements of the student body to current Bucknellians and interested alumni,” Mr. Beers said. “Every week we would meet to pool our research on other professional publications and discuss our findings. This semester we hope to finalize the content of the newsletter and possibly start putting our first issue together.”
Mr. Beers was recently notified of his nomination to the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society on the Bucknell campus. The organization is for first year students who have succeeded in notching a 3.5 grade point average and top 20 percent class standing. “I am immensely grateful for this honor and hope that I can live up to this academic benchmark throughout the rest of my college career,” he said.
The college freshman served as president of Huntington High School’s National English Honor Society chapter and was also a member of the National Honor Society, Science Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Social Studies Honor Society, Math Honor Society and the Art Honor Society.
“Overall, I am having a lot of fun here,” said Mr. Beers about his first year at Bucknell. “It was very intimidating at first, being in a new place full of new people. A lot of times you think to yourself that you won’t fit in or find the right group of friends like you had in high school. But, once you throw yourself out there and start meeting new people with an open mind, you start forming incredible new friendships.”