Noah Atwood
San Diego County CA— Graduating Westview High School senior Helen Jin puts the “A” in Amazing. She earned a 4.4 GPA in a demanding curriculum of AP and honors courses. In fact, virtually the only times Helen did not achieve an A in a class were the many times she received an A+.
Helen is an award-winning artist who exhibits and sells her work and assiduously strives to perfect her skills, as she does in everything she pursues. She is a gifted pianist who teaches piano, a clothing designer with a successful sideline business selling her apparel, and a perspicacious young adult who can see the beauty in science as well as nature. After observing the work of an oncologist at Scripps La Jolla Hospital of Radiology, Helen says she learned, “Radiation oncology is just as artistic as it is scientific. It’s something beautiful, something useful, something that can wipe away the bad from a human body, leaving behind healthy flesh.”
Thanks to her myriad academic, artistic and other achievements, Helen Jin will be a USC Presidential Scholar beginning this fall, supported in part by a $2,500 Don Diego Scholarship Foundation Award in the category of San Diego County Fair Exhibitor.
Helen is a young legend at the Fair’s Student Showcase, where she exhibited for four years. She amassed multiple awards, including Best in Show, Best in Class, Donated Award and First Place ribbons. She reports, “Having my pieces displayed at the Fair brought me pride, diligence and a sense of competition. It also brought me into contact with art supply stores, teachers and places such as the San Diego Museum of Fine Art in Balboa Park, where one of my pieces is on display at the front desk.”
Westview Counselor Christine Cudmore says that several of Helen’s works embellish the school office, including a huge piece speed-painted in just 45 minutes by Helen and a team. Cudmore relates, “This past summer, Helen traveled to China to work with children who lack support from home. She taught the kids English, music and art, and enjoyed giving them the opportunity to express themselves as she has been able to do in her life.” Cudmore and other school personnel laud Helen’s “unique set of skills: her entrepreneurship, her thirst for knowledge and her keen self-awareness.”
Helen is as modest as she is accomplished. She states, “Thank you so much, Don Diego! I’m so happy and grateful to have been chosen as a scholarship recipient. Your scholarship will be a helpful step in letting me pursue my interdisciplinary interests of business, medicine, and art.” Helen’s father, Dr. Haorin Jin, is the Chief Medical Physicist at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla.
Annual Don Diego scholarships are open to San Diego County high school seniors who have participated in the San Diego County Fair and/or other activities associated with the Del Mar Fairgrounds. To obtain information on the other eleven 2016 scholarship recipients, to learn more about the program, or to purchase tickets to the June 30, 2016 Dinner and Concert Gala at the Fair at which the recipients will be honored, visit www.dondiegoscholarship.org.
The Don Diego Scholarship Foundation was named for Don Diego, AKA Tom Hernandez, who served as the Fair’s welcoming goodwill ambassador from 1947-1984.
Since its inception in 1986, the Foundation has awarded approximately $797,000 in scholarships to 177 students and in agriculture education grants. Information on Don Diego’s history and the Foundation’s current programs and donation opportunities is at www.dondiegoscholarship.org and www.facebook.com/DonDiegoScholarship.