The list of Americans awarded Rhodes Scholarships this year were announced on Saturday. The annual notice of the Rhodes Scholarships is, as a general rule, of limited interest to people other than the families of those chosen. In part this is because the students, while clever and well rounded are, after all, still in college and mostly anonymous.
The Rhodes Scholarship, created in 1902 by the Will of African colonial pioneer and philanthropist Cecil John Rhodes, provides full expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford . It is arguably the most prestigious award given to American undergraduates.
The interesting part of the Rhodes list usually has to do with the schools the students attend. Of the 32 winners announced on Saturday night, this year’s was the first to have a winner from Truman State University, in Missouri. Andrew McCall, who was raised in St. Louis, is the Truman State winner.
Two students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Henry Spelman of Swarthmore, Pa. and Libby Longino of Dallas, Texas, also won Rhodes Scholarships. Spelman and Longino have apparently been dating since last summer.
