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Anna Durbin and the bingo scholarship

10 min read
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Anna Durbin ran around the bingo hall during the Jacktown fair for Harveys Aleppo Grange, passing out and collecting cards and winnings and the like.

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At the Jacktown Fair, Anna Durbin worked the Bingo Hall with Harveys Aleppo Grange. The group awarded her a $1,000 scholarship based on her essay filled with hometown pride and her extensive academic, volunteering and athletic persuits

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Varsity Football Coach Brian Hanson, Varsity Softball Coach and Athletic Director Billy Simms, Varsity Baseball Coach Lenny Lohr and Varsity Girls Basketball Coach Jordan Watson stand proudly behind 2022 graduates Hunter Hamilton and Anna Durbin, voted Athletes of the Year by the Lions Club. Hamilton played football and baseball, Durbin played softball and basketball; all four teams won their respective section titles in 2022, a first for West Greene. 

If you went to the Jacktown Fair this year, not only can you now die happy, but there’s also a good chance you saw Anna Durbin working the Bingo Hall with Harveys Aleppo Grange. The pace this athletic, just turned 19-year-old kept as she maneuvered booths and tables to hand out winnings, then gathered up quarters for the next round was a muscle-charged example of the moves she brought to the softball field and basketball and volleyball courts at West Greene High School during her record-breaking varsity career.  

After all, this is the kid who kicked off her freshman year as the first female backup place kicker on the West Greene Varsity football team, scoring offensive points – another historic first – while she was at it.   

What she was doing in the bingo hall is just another part of Durbin’s senior winning season at West Greene. Her $1,000 scholarship from Harveys Aleppo Grange had been presented to her Tuesday night after the parade, and she would be there at the bingo hall the following nights as part of the team that turns quarters into scholarships for West Greene County and graduates.   

Every year Harveys Aleppo Grange runs the bingo concession at the Jacktown Fair, charging a quarter a card, five for a dollar and a dollar for drinks. Winners split each pot, and the other half is added to next year’s scholarship fund. In the course of fair week, those quarters add up, Grange Master Mary Jane Kent pointed out. She was sitting beside fellow granger Marty Dinsmore, who was busy stacking quarters and separating them for the winning cards. Dusk was gathering, and the fair lights were beginning to twinkle. Players ambled over to give dollars for the soda and bottled water from the old refrigerator, scholarship donation cans sat ready and waiting on every table and the sound of “Bingo!” being called mixed with the live music outside. Kids crouched intently over their first cards. Grandmas showed them the numbers they missed.  

”This is how we raise the money for West Greene graduates who want to further their education, not just with college but any program or trade school where they’ve been accepted,” Kent said. “This year, we voted to increase the scholarship to $1,000 and are very happy to have Anna Durbin as the winner. Her essay was excellent. I was in Grange with her grandparents Ruthann and Raymond Goodwin.”  

The grange scholarship form is just one page, with options to add more to every question, and Durbin had a lot to add. It would take four pages to cover the sports she played and the awards and volunteer hours – with the Humane Society, mentoring fellow students, teaching Sunday School at Ryerson Baptist Church – she racked up since freshman year. Her varsity girls basketball and softball years are part of a six-year West Greene winning streak for both teams. By 2022, varsity football, with three years as Section champs, was joined for the first time ever by varsity boys baseball, making all four varsity teams Section winners – another first for West Greene.  

The scholarship application gives students a chance to write about their future goals but also asks them to take a moment to reflect and describe what it was like for them growing up in Greene County, where organizations like Grange were an important part of life for farming families. Durbin reports she learned about Grange from her mom’s side of the family. Her great grandparents, Anna and Guy Goodwin, were charter members of Harvey’s Grange. Two generations of grandmothers contributed recipes to the grange cookbooks that “my mom still uses to this day.”  

Durbin chose the Grange declaration of purpose “In essentials, unity, in nonessentials, liberty, in all things, charity” for her summation of Grange values that resonate with her. “This introduction, I think, says it all.”  

Growing up in Greene County has been the adventure of a unique lifetime for Durbin.  

”I was born in the Russian Federation in 2003 and adopted by my two wonderful parents in 2004 at the age of 10 months. This is a strong part of my identity, and I’m proud of my United States citizenship as well as my Russian/Ukrainian heritage.”  

Being raised in “the small community of Beulah, just north of Nineveh,” Durbin lived the life of a farm kid surrounded by nature and animals. “My brother and I (who is also adopted from Russia) have raised 4-H market swine hogs for show and competition.”   

She was also encouraged to excel academically both at home and in school. She credits her love of math to her mother, a retired math teacher, but also gives a shout-out to high school math teacher Eric Bedilion. “I credit them both for my passion for applied mathematics as well as my desire to pursue a degree in it. As a female math student, I am considered a minority in a field dominated by men, and I am proud to accept such a challenging field of study.” Durbin is well versed in the history of Greene County embedded in her last name. “My dad is the descendent of one of the original settlers of the 18th century … the town of Durbin is near Crows Rock.” Grandfather Durbin joined the Navy and settled in New Jersey but came back every summer to visit. “My dad’s dream came true when he was able to return in 1998 and buy a farm in Beulah near our family farms.”  

Durbin admits that she’s glad she attended “one of the smallest schools in the Commonwealth,” a school small enough to nurture all the talent that comes its way, whether it be sports or academics. “This has molded me into the person I am today.  

”I have a strong mathematics background and have been accepted into the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg’s applied mathematics program. I look at life very optimistically and try not to take anything for granted. This is in large part because of where I have been raised. Here in Greene County, we really have all the benefits of the small town atmosphere without the hassle of a big city or suburban life. While playing AAU travel basketball for a Pittsburgh-based team, I remember many players and coaches not even knowing where Greene County was! Anything south of Washington, PA, was a black hole to them. That is all right with me. I do not know where I will end up or what the future may hold, but I know Greene County will always be Home Sweet Home.”  

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